Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who has a low opinion of himself.
She was as one who, in madness, was resolute to throw herself from a precipice, but to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek those who would save her from herself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote illustrates the inner conflict of a person torn between self-destructive impulses and the desire for salvation.
In this quote, Anthony Trollope depicts a character grappling with deep internal turmoil, reminiscent of the struggle between madness and reason. The imagery of attempting to leap from a precipice symbolizes a drastic self-destructive choice, while the acknowledgment of a 'remnant of sanity' points to the innate human instinct to seek help and protection, representing the duality of self-sabotage and the longing for redemption amidst chaos.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about mental health struggles, this quote can highlight the importance of seeking help even when one feels lost.
More from Anthony Trollope
All quotes →Romance is very pretty in novels, but the romance of a life is always a melancholy matter. They are most happy who have no story to tell.
There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.
That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing.
A man's love, till it has been chastened and fastened by the feeling of duty which marriage brings with it, is instigated mainly by the difficulty of pursuit.
But she knew this,—that it was necessary for her happiness that she should devote herself to some one. All the elegancies and outward charms of life were delightful, if only they could be used as the means to some end. As an end themselves they were nothing.
Similar quotes
The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space-each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.
In summary, Intelligence Intensification is desirable, because there is not a single problem confronting humanity that is not either caused or considerably worsened by the prevailing stupidity (insensitivity) of the species: badly wired robots bumping into and maiming and killing each other.
There's an African proverb: 'When death finds you, may it find you alive.' Alive means living your own damned life, not the life that your parents wanted, or the life some cultural group or political party wanted, but the life that your own soul wants to live.
Most persons are so absorbed in the contemplation of the outside world that they are wholly oblivious to what is passing on within themselves. The premature death of millions is primarily traceable to this cause. Even among those who exercise care, it is a common mistake to avoid imaginary, and ignore the real dangers. And what is true of an individual also applies, more or less, to a people as a whole.
The lives of individuals of the human race form a constant plot, in which every attempt to isolate one piece of living that has a meaning separate from the rest-for example, the meeting of two people, which will become decisive for both-must bear in mind that each of the two brings with himself a texture of events, environments, other people, and that from the meeting, in turn, other stories will be derived which will break off from their common story.
How do we remember to remember? That's a question I've asked myself often since my time on Duma Key, often in the small hours of the morning, looking up into the absence of light, remembering absent friends. Sometimes in those little hours I think about the horizon. You have to establish the horizon. You have to mark the white. A simple enough act, you might say, but any act that re-makes the world is heroic. Or so I've come to believe.