The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is even condemned to find much of his own mind.
F. H. BradleyRead
Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that the essence of our life experiences, when reduced to simple sayings, loses its emotional depth and significance.
F. H. Bradley reflects on the transformation of profound life experiences into mere words. He argues that when we attempt to encapsulate our heartfelt experiences into aphorisms or epigrams, we strip them of their richness and emotional weight, turning them into something lifeless and dull.
In practice
During a public speaking event on the power of storytelling.
The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is even condemned to find much of his own mind.
Where everything is bad it must be good to know the worst.
The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness.
True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.
Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct.
One said of suicide, As long as one has brains one should not blow them out. And another answered, But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot.
Fanaticism is at its very strongest when it has political or, better still, religious motivation.
Be silent. That heart speaks without tongue or lips.
Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing.
People are sad. People are broke. People are worried about money, people are worried that they're not enough and not amounting to anything and they don't feel good about themselves. People have rough times, and everybody's pretending it's not true, and we need to break that veneer.
The only thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is.
Only thought which does violence to itself is hard enough to shatter myth.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.