There is nothing in the world so monstrously vast as our indifference.
Interpretation
Indifference can be more overwhelming than any tangible force in the world.
This quote by Machado De Assis highlights the significant impact of human indifference. It suggests that indifference towards the suffering or needs of others creates a vast emptiness that can overshadow even the greatest challenges or events, emphasizing the importance of empathy and engagement in the human experience.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of compassion.
Let Pascal say that man is a thinking reed. He is wrong; man is a thinking erratum. Each period in life is a new edition that corrects the preceding one and that in turn will be corrected by the next, until publication of the definitive edition, which the publisher donates to the worms.
In ordinary life, the action of a third party does not free the contractor from an obligation; but the advantage of making a contract with heaven is that intentions are valid currency.
Por que bonita, se coxa? Por que coxa, se bonita?
To him the stars seemed like so many musical notes affixed to the sky, just waiting for somebody to unfasten them. Someday the sky would be emptied, but by then the earth would be a constellation of musical scores
First, if it is true that a spatial order organizes an ensemble of possibilities (e.g., by a place in which one can move) and interdictions (e.g., by a wall that prevents one from going further), than the walked actualizes some of these possibilities. In that way, he makes them exist as well as emerge. But he also moves them about and he invents others, since the crossing, drifting away, or improvisation of walking privilege, transform, or abandon spatial elements.
I believe we are going to have to prepare ourselves for the difficult and patient task of outgrowing rigid and intransigent nationalism, and work slowly towards a world federation of peaceful nations. How will this be possible? Don't ask me. I don't know. But unless we develop a moral, spiritual, and political wisdom that is proportionate to our technological skill, our skill may end us.
The scenarios of biological or chemical warfare painted in detail by the American media during the months after September 11 only betray the inability of the government to determine the magnitude of the danger.
Sentences are not as such either true or false.
What God requires of us he himself works in us, or it is not done. He that commands faith, holiness, and love, creates them by the power of his grace going along with his word, that he may have all the praise.
An individual gospel without a social gospel is a soul without a body and a social gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul. One is a ghost, the other a corpse.
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