I believe in the compelling power of love. I do not understand it. I believe it to be the most fragrant blossom of all this thorny existence.
Theodore DreiserRead
If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circustance.
Interpretation
Religion is a comforting solution created by humans to heal emotional pain caused by life experiences.
This quote suggests that religion serves as a protective mechanism for individuals who have suffered from life's hardships. Dreiser implies that instead of being an ultimate truth, religion functions as a way to cope with the emotional and spiritual wounds inflicted by challenges and circumstances beyond one's control.
In practice
During a discussion on the role of religion in society, this quote can illustrate how faith is often used to deal with suffering.
I believe in the compelling power of love. I do not understand it. I believe it to be the most fragrant blossom of all this thorny existence.
Assure a man that he has a soul and then frighten him with old wives' tales as to what is to become of him afterward, and you have hooked a fish, a mental slave.
And then he sank back and tried, as usual, not to think. He must succeed. That's what the world was made for. That's what he was made for. That was what he would have to do.
Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
Our civilization is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason.
People in general attach too much importance to words. They are under the illusion that talking effects great results. As a matter of fact, words are, as a rule, the shallowest portion of all the argument. They but dimly represent the great surging feelings and desires which lie behind. When the distraction of the tongue is removed, the heart listens.
It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.
Nothing exists for itself alone, but only in relation to other forms of life
The world is a sacred vessel. It should not be meddled with. It should not be owned. If you try to meddle with it you will ruin it. If you try to own it you will lose it
A society that is not willing to demand a life of somebody who has taken somebody elseβs life is simply immoral.
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
And we have made of ourselves living cesspools, and driven doctors to invent names for our diseases.
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