Unbounded courage and compassion join'd, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete.
Joseph AddisonRead
Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness.
Interpretation
Being indecisive about life's choices and inconsistent in pursuing them leads to unhappiness.
This quote by Joseph Addison emphasizes that indecision and lack of commitment to the choices we face in life are significant contributors to our unhappiness. When we hesitate to make decisions or change directions frequently without focus, we create a sense of instability and dissatisfaction that hinders our overall well-being.
In practice
In a self-help seminar to explain the importance of making decisions for personal growth.
Unbounded courage and compassion join'd, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete.
Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.
Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.
Admiration is a very short lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it still be fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view.
It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights.
An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
I think if a physician wrote on a death certificate that old age was the cause of death, he'd be thrown out of the union. There is always some final event, some failure of an organ, some last attack of pneumonia, that finishes off a life. No one dies of old age.
The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.
I'm not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live. My lifestyle is a consequence of my wounds. I'm the son of my history. There have been years when I would have been happy just to have a mattress.
Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.
Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness a more humane society will not emerge.
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