By all means continue destroying my possessions. I daresay I have too many.
J. K. RowlingRead
Power was my weakness and my temptation.
Interpretation
Power can be both a source of weakness and a strong lure.
In this quote, J.K. Rowling reflects on the dual nature of power, suggesting that it can lead to vulnerabilities as well as temptations. The speaker acknowledges how the desire for power might attract individuals, yet it can also reveal their flaws, emphasizing that the pursuit of power is not always a beneficial or straightforward endeavor.
In practice
In a discussion about the ethical implications of leadership, this quote can illustrate the complexities faced by those in power.
By all means continue destroying my possessions. I daresay I have too many.
Where are you heading, if you’ve got the choice?” James lifted an invisible sword. “‘Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!’ Like my dad.” Snape made a small, disparaging noise. James turned on him. “Got a problem with that?” “No,” said Snape, though his slight sneer said otherwise. “If you’d rather be brawny than brainy —” “Where’re you hoping to go, seeing as you’re neither?” interjected Sirius.
Depression isn't just being a bit sad. It's feeling nothing. It's not wanting to be alive anymore.
I tell you, that dragon's the most horrible animal I've ever met, but the way Hagrid goes on about it, you'd think it was a fluffy little bunny rabbit.
Imagine losing fingernails, Harry! That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn't it?
The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.
I have a hundred times heard him say, that all ages and nations have represented their gods as wicked, in a constantly increasing progression; that mankind have gone on adding trait after trait till they reached the most perfect conception of wickedness which the human mind could devise, and have called this God, and prostrated themselves before it.
Homo sapiens, the only creature endowed with reason, is also the only creature to pin its existence on things unreasonable.
Gifts, believe me, captivate both men and Gods, Jupiter himself was won over and appeased by gifts.
...conversation can be as mutually incomprehensible as foreign languages. We need the different and complementary perspectives of the various yogas - and ideally of all religions - not only to reach God but to reach each other.
Apart from their other characteristics, the outstanding thing about China's 600 million people is that they are “poor and blank”. This may seem a bad thing, but in reality it is a good thing. Poverty gives rise to the desire for changes, the desire for action and the desire for revolution. On a blank sheet of paper free from any mark, the freshest and most beautiful characters can be written; the freshest and most beautiful pictures can be painted.
It is not rebellion itself which is noble but the demands it makes upon us.
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