You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
Nuclear weapons and TV have simply intensified the consequences of our tendencies, upped the stakes.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that modern developments, like nuclear weapons and television, magnify human tendencies and the resulting consequences.
David Foster Wallace's quote reflects on how certain advancements, particularly in technology and warfare, have heightened the ethical and moral dilemmas faced by humanity. With the advent of nuclear weapons, the potential for catastrophic consequences has increased dramatically, while television has altered our perceptions and reactions, amplifying both our fears and desires. This idea encourages a deeper examination of how our inherent tendencies are amplified by the tools and technologies we create.
Themes
NuclearTelevisionConsequencesTendenciesHuman Behavior
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the implications of modern technology, one might quote Wallace to emphasize the responsibility that comes with advancements.
More from David Foster Wallace
All quotes βEverything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.
David Foster WallaceRead
It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.
David Foster WallaceRead
Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don't want to see or let anyone else see, and this stuff usually turns out (paradoxically) to be precisely the stuff all writers and readers share and respond to, feel.
David Foster WallaceRead
Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.
David Foster WallaceRead
Bliss - a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious - lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like youβve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and itβs like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.
David Foster WallaceRead
Similar quotes
Whatever seeds each man cultivates will grow to maturity and bear in him their own fruit. If they be vegetative, he will be like a plant.
Giovanni Pico Della MirandolaRead
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
MontesquieuRead
Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.
Jack KornfieldRead
For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one.
Nikola TeslaRead
When one of my Japanese teacups is broken, I imagine that the real cause was not the careless hand of a maid but the anxieties of the figures inhabiting the curves of that porcelain. Their grim decision to commit suicide doesn't shock me: they used the maid as one of us might use a gun.
Fernando PessoaRead
God is silent. Now if only man would shut up.
Woody AllenRead