The man who fights for his fellow-man is a better man than the one who fights for himself.
Interpretation
Selflessness is a virtue that elevates oneβs character above selfishness.
This quote emphasizes the moral superiority of altruism over selfishness. It suggests that those who dedicate their efforts to the well-being of others are more admirable and virtuous than those who pursue their own interests exclusively. The essence of humanity is captured in the fight for others, highlighting the importance of empathy and community.
In practice
During a motivational speech about community service.
With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in men, than any other association of men.
Do I need to argue to Your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty? That hatred only causes hatred; that if there is any way to soften this human heart which is hard enough at its best, if there is any way to kill evil and hatred and all that goes with it, it is not through evil and hatred and cruelty; it is through charity, and love, and understanding?
Chase after the truth like all hell.
No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed.
Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man. She will have nothing from him who will not give her all. She knows that his pretended love serves but to betray. But when once the fierce heat of her quenchless, lustrous eyes have burned into the victim's heart, he will know no other smile but hers.
The trouble with law is lawyers.
We have become, by the power of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the stewards of life's continuity on earth. We did not ask for this role, but we cannot abjure it. We may not be suited to it, but here we are.
Choices, more choices than we like afterward to believe, are made far backward in the innocence of childhood.
Some like to believe it's the book that chooses the person.
The possession of arbitrary power has always, the world over, tended irresistibly to destroy humane sensibility, magnanimity, and truth.
Whenever God's will is in the ascendant all compulsion is gone. When we choose deliberately to obey Him then with all His almighty power.
Man is not interesting without some imperfection
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