The greedy search for money or success will almost always lead men into unhappiness. Why? Because that kind of life makes them depend upon things outside themselves.
Andre MauroisRead
A man cannot free himself from the past more easily than he can from his own body.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that our past experiences and memories are as integral to our identity as our physical body.
Andre Maurois highlights the inescapability of our past in shaping who we are. Just as we cannot detach from our physical form, we cannot easily free ourselves from the memories, choices, and influences of our past, which continue to define our present and future.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about how our past experiences shape our current decisions.
The greedy search for money or success will almost always lead men into unhappiness. Why? Because that kind of life makes them depend upon things outside themselves.
It is better to teach a few things perfectly than many things indifferently...
Lost Illusion is the undisclosed title of every novel.
We can talk frankly about our defects only to those who recognise our qualities.
Men fear silence as they fear solitude, because both give them a glimpse of the terror of life's nothingness.
If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.
In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.
I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
The quality of the will to power is, precisely, growth. Achievement is its cancellation. To be, the will to power must increase with each fulfillment, making the fulfillment only a step to a further one. The vaster the power gained the vaster the appetite for more.
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day be day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right.
To be silent when we are impelled to utter words injurious to God or to our neighbour, is an act of virtue; but, to be silent in confessing our sins, is the ruin of the soul.
Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.
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