I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.
Virginia WoolfRead
One likes people much better when they're battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People tend to empathize more with those who have faced adversity than with those who have achieved success.
Virginia Woolf suggests that there is a deeper connection and appreciation for individuals who endure hardship and misfortune, as these experiences often uncover their vulnerability and resilience. In contrast, triumph can create distance, as success can sometimes lead to envy or alienation, making it difficult to relate. This perspective emphasizes the value of compassion and understanding in human relationships, highlighting how shared struggles foster empathy and connection.
Themes
EmpathyAdversitySuccessHuman ConnectionMisfortune
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech emphasizing the importance of resilience in the face of challenges.
More from Virginia Woolf
All quotes βDeath is woven in with the violets,β said Louis. βDeath and again death.β)
Virginia WoolfRead
He began to search among the infinite series of impressions which time had laid down, leaf upon leaf, fold upon fold softly, incessantly upon his brain; among scents, sounds; voices, harsh, hollow, sweet; and lights passing, and brooms tapping; and the wash and hush of the sea.
Virginia WoolfRead
I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts.
Virginia WoolfRead
I do think all good and evil comes from words. I have to tune myself into a good temper with something musical, and I run to a book as a child to its mother.
Virginia WoolfRead
London perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play and a story and a poem, without any trouble, save that of moving my legs through the streets... To walk alone through London is the greatest rest.
Virginia WoolfRead
Similar quotes
But I deny that the Constitution recognizes property in man.
William H. SewardRead
And that was all the part of it - the way you were obliged to live. You stifled a groan, you lied about your love, you deceived your legal wife, and all in the name of honour. That was the damned paradox of it - in order to behave well, you have to behave badly.
Julian BarnesRead
Duty is heavier than a mountain, Dai Shan.' That time, Lan did flinch. How long had it been since someone had been able to do that to him with mere words? He remembered teaching that same concept to a youth out of the Two Rivers. A sheepherder, innocent of the world, fearful of the fate laid out before him by the Pattern.
Robert JordanRead
Let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Whether we eat, sleep, work, play, whatever we do life contains dissatisfaction, pain. If we enjoy pleasure, we are afraid to lose it; we strive for more and more pleasure or try to contain it. If we suffer pain we want to escape it. We experience dissatisfaction all the time. All activities contain dissatisfaction or pain, continuously.
Chogyam TrungpaRead
Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be.
Daniel J. BoorstinRead