You are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can can play the 'Gloria'? No, not Bach's 'Gloria.' Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you.
Interpretation
This quote encourages individuals to recognize and utilize their inherent talents and potential given by God.
Abraham Verghese emphasizes the importance of discovering and embracing one's unique abilities, portraying each person as an instrument meant to contribute to the world. He suggests that choosing to ignore or underutilize these gifts is the true failure, as it prevents one from expressing their own unique creativity and purpose, which he metaphorically calls 'Gloria'.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-discovery and harnessing one's abilities.
The flip side of suicide is that it leaves a lingering question in the minds of the people who survived. It's like a cancer that's metastasized. The suicide is the cancer and the metastasis is all these people saying, Why? Why? Why?
We're losing a ritual. We're losing a ritual that I believe is transformative, transcendent, and is at the heart of the patient-physician relationship.
I still find the best way to understand a hospitalized patient whose care I am taking over is not by staring at the computer screen but by going to see the patient; it's only at the bedside that I can figure out what is important.
It was all I had, all I've ever had, the only currency, the only proof that I was alive. Memory.
My VIP patients often regret so many things on their deathbeds. They regret the bitterness they'll leave in people's hearts. They realize the no money, no church service, no eulogy, no funeral procession no matter how elaborate, can remove the legacy of a mean spirit.
Students undergo a conversion in the third year of medical school - not pre-clinical to clinical, but pre-cynical to cynical.
Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized.
That was the big thing when I was growing up, singing on the radio. The extent of my dream was to sing on the radio station in Memphis. Even when I got out of the Air Force in 1954, I came right back to Memphis and started knocking on doors at the radio station.
The headmaster asked to read one of my poems at some celebration or other when I was about 10. When I look back, that is phenomenal encouragement.
One of the saddest lines in the world is, 'Oh come now - be realistic.' The best parts of this world were not fashioned by those who were realistic. They were fashioned by those who dared to look hard at their wishes and gave them horses to ride.
From first to last, the peak is never passed. Something always fires the light that gets in your eyes.
Come out into the Universe of Light. Everything in the Universe is Yours, stretch out your arms and Embrace it with Love
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