Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony must investigate discord.
Interpretation
To create something positive, one must first understand its opposite or challenge.
This quote by Plutarch suggests that in order to create health through medicine, one must closely study disease. Similarly, in music, the creation of harmony necessitates an understanding and exploration of discord. This idea can be applied broadly, as it highlights the importance of comprehending difficulties or contrasts to foster growth and creativity in various fields.
In practice
In a speech on the importance of holistic health, one could quote this to emphasize understanding illnesses.
Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face, where the character is revealed, than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men.
It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief - the other contempt.
Come back with your shield - or on it
The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.
For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.
Our senses through ignorance of Reality, falsely tell us that what appears to be, is. FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real
Each activity of daily life in which we stretch ourselves on behalf of others is a prayer in action.
Good Morning!β said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat. βWhat do you mean?β he said. βDo you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?
The notion that Congress can change the meaning given a constitutional provision by the Court is subversive of the function of judicial review; and it is not the less so because the Court promises to allow it only when the Constitution is moved to the left.
Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep the truth and let God go.
Every rose that is sweet-scented within, That rose is telling of the secrets of the Universal.
I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca-or Chartres, York Minster or Notre Dame, the Shwe Dagon, the temples of Kyoto or, of course, the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
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