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
This very heart which is mine will forever remain indefinable to me. Between the certainty I have of my existence and the content I try to give to that assurance, the gap will never be filled. Forever I shall be a stranger to myself.
In general, I agree with Socrates that what democracies badly need is the examined life, and we need to think critically about ourselves.
A priest friend of mine has cautioned me away from the standard God of our childhoods, who loves you and guides you and then, if you are bad, roasts you: God as a high school principal in a gray suit who never remembered your name but is always leafing unhappily through your files.
We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still.
Laws without morals are in vain.
Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?
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