Reason speaks and feeling bites
Interpretation
This quote contrasts rational thought with emotional response, suggesting that both play an essential role in human experience.
Plutarch's quote implies a dynamic interplay between reason and emotion, indicating that while reason can articulate and guide our thoughts, emotions often add depth and urgency to our experiences. It highlights the importance of balancing rational decision-making with emotional intelligence in navigating life's complexities.
In practice
During a motivational speech about decision-making, this quote could be used to emphasize the importance of listening to both rational thoughts and emotions.
Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face, where the character is revealed, than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men.
It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief - the other contempt.
Come back with your shield - or on it
The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.
For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.
Our senses through ignorance of Reality, falsely tell us that what appears to be, is. FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real
Though Gods attributes are equal, yet his mercy is more attractive and pleasing in our eyes than his justice.
The fourth (of the four cardinal virtues) is supportiveness: this manifests as service to others without expectation of reward. (Paraphrased: Such service is not a mere conforming to some external rule of behavior, but instead a manifestation of your original nature).
You asked me once,' said O'Brien, 'what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.
Some of the homes that have been built in the last 10 years just appall me. Why do humans need huge homes? I was born poor and I didnβt know you bought clothes at anything but the Goodwill until I went to college. Some of our mentality about what it means to have a good life is, I think, not going to help us in the next 50 years. We have to think through how to choose a meaningful life where weβre helping one another in ways that really help the Earth.
The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. The simplicity of nature is not that which may be easily read but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made.
London is too full of fogs and serious people. Whether the fogs produce the serious people, or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know.
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