The whole life lies in the verb seeing.
If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions. There are a good many points about which I may be diffident, but when it comes to questions of Truth and intellectual independence, there is no holding me - I can envisage no finer end than to sacrifice oneself for a conviction.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses the idea that the pursuit of truth and one's beliefs is worth sacrificing for, reflecting a deep commitment to intellectual independence.
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin conveys a profound commitment to the pursuit of truth and the importance of standing firm in one's beliefs. He emphasizes that while he may have uncertainties in many areas, he possesses a strong conviction regarding the value of intellectual independence and the willingness to face persecution for one's opinions. In essence, he highlights that the ultimate fulfillment comes from sacrificing for one's convictions, underscoring the nobility of defending the truth.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about standing up for one's beliefs during a community meeting.
More from Pierre Teilhard De Chardin
All quotes →Religion and science are the two conjugated faces or phases of one and the same complete act of knowledge - the only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution and so contemplate, measure and fulfil them.
The mineral world is a much more supple and mobile world than could be imagined by the science of the ancients. Vaguely analogous to the metamorphoses of living creatures, there occurs in the most solid rocks, as we now know, perpetual transformation of a mineral species.
We may, perhaps, imagine that the creation was finished long ago. But that would be quite wrong. It continues still more magnificently, and at the highest levels of the world.
Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth.
All ways of living can be sanctified, and for each individual, the ideal way is that to which our Lord leads him through the natural development of his tastes and the pressure of circumstances.
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I don't have a feeling of inferiority. Never had. I'm as good as anybody, but no better.
The Edge...There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others-the living-are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still Out there.
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother
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