Pride is founded not on the sense of happiness, but on the sense of power.
William HazlittRead
Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The more we feel our lives lack purpose, the more we fear death.
This quote suggests that our fear of death is closely tied to our assessment of our lives. If we believe we have lived without meaning or achievement, the notion of death becomes more unsettling because it symbolizes the end of unfulfilled potential and experiences. Conversely, a life rich in purpose can ease the fear of mortality.
Themes
DeathPurposeLifeFearConsciousness
In practice
Example use cases
In a eulogy to highlight the importance of living a meaningful life.
More from William Hazlitt
All quotes βThe world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.
William HazlittRead
We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.
William HazlittRead
There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our firends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please, that is, as they please or displease us.
William HazlittRead
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.
William HazlittRead
One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it.
William HazlittRead
Similar quotes
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.
George OrwellRead
The monster does not need the hero. it is the hero who needs him for his very existence. When the hero confronts the monster, he has yet neither power nor knowledge, the monster is his secret father who will invest him with a power and knowledge that can belong to one man only, and that only the monster can give.
Roberto CalassoRead
Today we continue a never ending journey to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time.
Barack ObamaRead
As someone who lived under communism for most of my life I feel obliged to say that the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer variants. Communism was replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism.
Vaclav KlausRead
And each day brings it's pretty dust, Our soon-choked souls to fll And we forget because we must, And not because we will.
Matthew ArnoldRead
Look at me. I was a warrior on this land where the sun rises, now I come from where the sun sets. Whose voice was first surrounded on this land - the red people with bows and arrows. The Great Father says he is good and kind to us. I can't see it.
Red CloudRead