There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.
T. S. EliotRead
We can at least try to understand our own motives, passions, and prejudices, so as to be conscious of what we are doing when we apeal to those of others. This is very difficult, because our own prejudice and emotional bias always seems to us so rational.
Interpretation
Understanding ourselves helps us navigate our interactions with others.
This quote emphasizes the importance of self-awareness in our motivations and biases when communicating with others. T.S. Eliot suggests that recognizing and understanding our own prejudices and emotions can improve our ability to engage authentically and thoughtfully with the perspectives and feelings of others, even though this process is inherently challenging.
In practice
In a personal development workshop discussing the influence of bias in decision-making.
There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.
Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.
I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics.
If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
For I have known them all already, known them all— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
People had been working for so many years to make the world a safe, organized place. Nobody realized how boring it would become. With the whole world property-lined and speed-limited and zoned and taxed and regulated, with everyone tested and registered and adressed and recorded. Nobody had left much room for adventure, except maybe the kind you could buy. [...] The laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom.
Only one endowed with restless vitality is susceptible to pessimism. You become a pessimist-a demonic, elemental, bestial pessimist-only when life has been defeated many times in its fight against depression.
All things are nourished together without their injuring one another. The courses of the seasons, and of the sun and moon, are pursued without any collision among them. The smaller energies are like river currents; the greater energies are seen in mighty transformations. It is this which makes heaven and earth so great.
There aren't that many monsters. It's very hard to create a new monster.
It is true that the grasping of truth is not possible without empirical basis. However, the deeper we penetrate and the more extensive and embracing our theories become the less empirical knowledge is needed to determine those theories.
Only the peak feels so sound and stable that the beginning of the falling is hidden for a little while.
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