You can't judge an internal injury by the size of the hole.
Interpretation
True suffering often lies beneath the surface and cannot be measured by outward appearances.
This quote by Salman Rushdie suggests that external indicators of pain or injury do not accurately reflect the depth or severity of what someone might be experiencing internally. It speaks to the complexity of human suffering and encourages a deeper empathy towards others, reminding us that what is visible may only be a fraction of a person's true struggles.
In practice
In a speech about mental health awareness, one might use this quote to illustrate that mental struggles are often hidden.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
When you demonize Muslims as a community, as an entire group of people based on the crimes or actions of a tiny minority within that community, you have very worrying, real world effects.
But you see," said Roark quietly, "I have, let’s say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I’ve chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I’m only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one.
To think that before the hills were formed, or the channels of the sea were scooped out, God loved me; that from everlasting to everlasting His mercy is upon His people. Is not that a consolation?
Faith is the champion of Grace, and Love the nurse; but Humility is the beauty of Grace.
Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.
There comes a moment when we all must realize that life is short, and in the end the only thing that really counts is not how others see us, but how God sees us.
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