Married couples who quarrel bitterly every day may really need each other as deeply as those who appear to be desperately in love.
Edward AbbeyRead
A man is not aware of his virtues (if any). Nevertheless, one hopes that they exist.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that individuals often lack awareness of their own positive qualities but still hope they possess them.
Edward Abbey's quote reflects a common human predicament: many people are oblivious to their strengths and virtues, yet they still yearn to believe they have redeeming qualities. This notion emphasizes the dichotomy between self-perception and self-worth, suggesting that humility and uncertainty about one's qualities are natural, even as one desires to be seen positively by others.
Themes
VirtuesSelf-AwarenessHumilityHopeSelf-Perception
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about self-acceptance, one might quote this to highlight the importance of recognizing one's virtues.
More from Edward Abbey
All quotes βI love America because it is a confused, chaotic mess - and I hope we can keep it this way for at least another thousand years. The permissive society is the free society.
Edward AbbeyRead
If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out the company of those who do real work for an honest purpose.
Edward AbbeyRead
The earth is real. Only a fool, milking his cow, denies the cow's reality.
Edward AbbeyRead
I believe in nothing that I cannot touch, kiss, embrace.... The rest is only hearsay.
Edward AbbeyRead
Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.
Edward AbbeyRead
Similar quotes
But we had with us, to keep and to care for, more than five hundred bruised bodies of men- men made in the image of God, marred by the hand of man and must we say in the name of God? And where is the reckoning for such things? And who is answerable? One might almost shrink from the sound of his own voice, which had launched into the palpitating air words of order- do we call it? - fraught with such ruin. Was it God's command we heard or His forgiveness we must forever implore?
Joshua ChamberlainRead
We need to have empathy. When we lose empathy, we lose our humanity.
Goldie HawnRead
One can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man.
John BergerRead
In a jump, the subject, in a sudden burst of energy, overcomes gravity. He cannot simultaneously control his expressions, his facial and his limb muscles. The mask falls. The real self becomes visible. One only has to snap it with the camera.
Philippe HalsmanRead
Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable - which, I haste to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live.
Marilynne RobinsonRead
Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.
George Bernard ShawRead