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A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering.
George Gurdjieff
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Interpretation

What this quote means

People may abandon various pleasures, but they struggle to let go of their suffering.

This quote suggests that while individuals may be willing to forsake external joys and pleasures, they often cling to their internal suffering and pain. It highlights the complex relationship people have with their emotions, where suffering becomes a part of their identity and can be harder to relinquish than material or sensory pleasures.

Themes

SufferingPleasureIdentityEmotionPhilosophy

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about mental health, one might quote this to emphasize how people often hold onto their pain.

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