Most people think everybody feels about them much more violently than they actually do; they think other people's opinions of them swing through great arcs of approval or disapproval.
Interpretation
People often overestimate the intensity of others' feelings towards them, believing emotions fluctuate greatly.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote suggests that individuals tend to misconstrue how much others care about them. Many people believe that others are preoccupied with their opinions, often swinging between extremes of approval and disapproval, when in reality, others are often more neutral or indifferent. This reflects a common human tendency to be self-centered in our perceptions, imagining that others devote significant emotional energy to our existence and choices.
In practice
This quote could be used in a self-help seminar to remind participants about the nature of self-perception.
Don't be so anxious about it,' she laughed. 'I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do; I never got the trick of it.' She looked down at him, shy and fatigued. 'So here we are. I told you years ago that I had the makings of Cinderella.' He took her hand; she drew it back instinctively and then replaced it in his. 'Beg your pardon. Not even used to being touched. But I'm not afraid of you, if you stay quiet and don't move suddenly.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
It was about then [1920] that I wrote a line which certain people will not let me forget: "She was a faded but still lovely woman of twenty-seven."
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
But you can love more than just one person, can't you?
A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.
When two human beings get together, they're co-present, there is built into it a certain responsibility we have for each other, and when people are co-present in family relationships and other relationships, that responsibility is there. You can't just turn off a person. On the Internet, you can.
My husband is an opposition MP. Our political alliance may have fallen through, but our matrimonial alliance is intact.
I would say get to know somebody who isn't exactly like you and doesn't come from the same background as you, educate yourself and then just keep showing up. Finding ways to show up for people and your voice will come out of that relationship and out of your pursuit to seeing people who aren't exactly like you.
A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.
To communicate is our chief business; society and friendship our chief delights; and reading, not to acquire knowledge, not to earn a living, but to extend our intercourse beyond our own time and province.
Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.
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