If man were immortal he could be perfectly sure of seeing the day when everything in which he had trusted should betray his trust, and, in short, of coming eventually to hopeless misery. He would break down, at last, as every good fortune, as every dynasty, as every civilization does. In place of this we have death.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the inevitability of trust being broken and the eventual downfall of all good things, emphasizing that death provides a necessary end to avoid perpetual suffering.
Charles Sanders Peirce explores the paradox of immortality, suggesting that if humans were immortal, they would ultimately experience boundless disappointment and misery as their hopes were continuously betrayed. This leads to the idea that death is a merciful end, preventing the eternal suffering that would accompany an endless life filled with the inevitable breakdown of trust and fortune.
In practice
This quote can be used in a philosophical discussion about the nature of life and trust.
The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking.
Notwithstanding all that has been discovered since Newton's time, his saying that we are little children picking up pretty pebbles on the beach while the whole ocean lies before us unexplored remains substantially as true as ever, and will do so though we shovel up the pebbles by steam shovels and carry them off in carloads.
My language is the sum total of myself.
All the evolution we know of proceeds from the vague to the definite.
The third class consists of men to whom nothing seems great but reason. If force interests them, it is not in its exertion, but in that it has a reason and a law. For men of the first class, nature is a picture; for men of the second class, it is an opportunity; for men of the third class, it is a cosmos, so admirable, that to penetrate to its ways seems to them the only thing that makes life worth living. These are the men whom we see possessed by a passion to learn.
A quality is something capable of being completely embodied. A law never can be embodied in its character as a law except by determining a habit. A quality is how something may or might have been. A law is how an endless future must continue to be.
The destiny of the woman must be shaped to a large extent on her own conception of her spiritual imperative and her place in society.
Race, what is that? Race is a competition, somebody winning and somebody losing. Blood doesn't run in races! Come on!
For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.
Language is the archives of history.
If we can stay with the tension of_x000D_ opposites long enough —sustain it,_x000D_ be true to it—we can sometimes_x000D_ become vessels within which the_x000D_ divine opposites come together and_x000D_ give birth to a new reality.
We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.