We're like so many puppets hung on the wall, waiting for someone to come and move us or make us talk.
Luigi PirandelloRead
Logic is one thing, the human animal another. You can quite easily propose a logical solution to something and at the same time hope in your heart of hearts it won't work out.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the conflict between human emotions and rational thought.
Pirandello's quote illustrates the dichotomy between logical reasoning and the complexities of human emotions. It suggests that while one can logically analyze a situation and devise a solution, one's deeper emotional desires may conflict with that rational conclusion, leading to a sense of ambivalence or hope against the expected logical outcome.
In practice
During a debate on ethics, one could use this quote to illustrate the tension between rational policies and human feelings.
We're like so many puppets hung on the wall, waiting for someone to come and move us or make us talk.
Woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope!
THE FATHER: But don't you see that the whole trouble lies here? In words, words. Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. We think we understand each other, but we never really do.
Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die! A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die!
A fact is like a sack - it won't stand up if it's empty. To make it stand up, first you have to put in it all the reasons and feelings that caused it in the first place.
Anyone can be heroic from time to time, but a gentleman is something you have to be all the time.
I think my cultural work is more important than the adventures I did. The adventures are not important for human beings. It's the conquering of the useless.
Every day without fail one should consider himself as dead. There is a saying of the elders that goes, 'Step from under the eaves and you're a dead man. Leave the gate and the enemy is waiting.' This is not a matter of being careful. It is to consider oneself as dead beforehand.
The present flowed by them like a stream. The tree rustled. It had made music before they were born, and would continue after their deaths, but its song was of the moment. The moment had passed. The tree rustled again. Their senses were sharpened, and they seemed to apprehend life. Life passed. The tree rustled again.
The media covers what’s new – and millions of people dying is nothing new. So it stays in the background, where it’s easier to ignore. But even when we do see it or read about it, it’s difficult to keep our eyes on the problem. It’s hard to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we don’t know how to help. And so we look away.
God's love does not distinguish between the infant in the mother's womb or the child or the youth or the adult or the older person. In each one God sees His image and likeness. Human life is a manifestation of God and His glory.
If the Lord counts the natural beauty of the body inferior to that of the soul, what thinks He of spurious beauty, rejecting utterly as He does all falsehood?
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