Kindness is not an illusion and violence is not a rule. The true resting state of human affairs is not represented by a man hacking his neighbor into pieces with a machete. That is a sick aberration. No, the true state of human affairs is life as it ought to be lived.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that kindness is inherent to humanity, while violence is a distortion of our true nature.
Paul Rusesabagina reflects on the nature of human existence, asserting that kindness is an intrinsic quality rather than an illusion, contrasting it with the violent acts that occasionally arise in society. He believes that such violence is an aberration, and the essence of life should be characterized by compassion and understanding rather than conflict and aggression.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about community building to emphasize the importance of kindness.
See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
We were equals once when we lay new-born babes on our nurse's knees. We will be equal again when they tie up our jaws for the last sleep.
The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their slave. They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw him into prison, or they could take his job away and starve him to death. When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his cap and address him as 'Sir'
What you hear depends on how you focus your ear. We're not talking about inventing a new language, but rather inventing new perceptions of existing languages.
I think it's relatively easy for people to accept something like telepathy or precognition or teleplasm because their willingness to believe doesn't cost them anything. It doesn't keep them awake nights. But the idea that the evil that men do lives after them is unsettling.
A thousand people drowned in floods in China are news: a solitary child drowned in a pond is tragedy.
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