Well, one hopes that if you're really related to the core of your particular culture, you have profound commitments to it, and that you are aware of how much you can strain it before you do violence to its essential nature.
Chaim PotokRead
A life is measured by how it is lived for the sake of heaven.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life's value is determined by its dedication to higher ideals.
This quote suggests that the true measure of a person's life lies not in their material achievements or social status, but in how well they live according to values that transcend the earthly realm. It emphasizes the importance of purpose, morality, and spirituality in evaluating the significance of one's existence.
Themes
LifeMeaningValuesPurposeHeaven
In practice
Example use cases
During a graduation speech to inspire students to live purpose-driven lives.
More from Chaim Potok
All quotes ββ¦ the world will indulge you just so long Asher Lev. Then it will stop. You will simply have to grow accustomed to that truth.
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A book is sent out into the world, and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare - let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel.
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All of us grow up in particular realities - a home, family, a clan, a small town, a neighborhood. Depending upon how we're brought up, we are either deeply aware of the particular reading of reality into which we are born, or we are peripherally aware of it.
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He taught them that the purpose of a man is to make his life holy--every aspect of his life: eating, drinking praying, sleeping. God is everywhere, he told them, and if it seems at times that He is hidden from us, it is only because we have not yet learned to seek Him correctly.
Chaim PotokRead
I think the hardest part of writing is revising. And by that I mean the following: A novelist has to create the piece of marble and then chip away to find the figure in it.
Chaim PotokRead
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Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly, unwearyingly,burrowing always at the very root of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away.
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Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.
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I like contradictions. We have never attained the infinite variety and contradictions that exist in nature. Tomorrow I shall contradict myself. That is the one way I have of asserting my liberty, the real liberty one does not find as a member of society.
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