Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor.
Graham GreeneRead
Ordinary life goes on--that has saved many a man's reason.
Interpretation
The routine of daily life can provide stability and comfort to individuals, preserving their mental well-being.
This quote suggests that the mundane, ordinary aspects of life serve as a grounding force for many people, helping them maintain their sanity in the face of challenges or chaos. It implies that the consistency and normalcy of daily routines can often be a refuge for individuals, allowing them to cope with deeper existential issues and uncertainties.
In practice
In a motivational speech about coping with stress, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of routine.
Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor.
It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn’t the test of man have been carried out in fewer years? Couldn’t we have committed our first major sin at seven, have ruined ourselves for love or hate at ten, have clutched at redemption on a fifteen-year-old deathbed?
God is love. I don't say the heart doesn't feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint pot of ditch-water. We wouldn't recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us - God's love.
Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.
With regard to the learned professions, little need be observed; they truly form no distinct interest in society . . . [discussing the landed, merchant, and learned classes in legislative assembly]. Will not the man of the learned profession, who will feel a neutrality to the rivalships between the different branches of industry, be likely to prove an impartial arbiter between them, ready to promote either, so far as it shall appear to him conducive to the general interests of society?
What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes.
A good man can be stupid and still be good. But a bad man must have brains.
Why do you need a voice when you have a verse?
If I could only remember that the days were not bricks to be laid row on row, to be built into a solid house, where one might dwell in safety and peace, but only food for the fires of the heart.
There really is no such thing as a sick child; there are children who happen to be sick. Think about it, and you will understand the magic of the Camps
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