One can imagine the look the two lovers exchanged; it was like a flame, for virtuous lovers have not a shred of hypocrisy.
Honore De BalzacRead
We cannot confront solitude without moral resources.
Interpretation
To face loneliness, one must possess inner strength and ethical values.
This quote by Honore De Balzac suggests that solitude is not merely a state of being alone; it requires a certain level of moral strength and personal resources to endure it. In times of solitude, individuals must rely on their own values, beliefs, and inner resilience to navigate the emotional and psychological challenges that come with being alone, emphasizing the importance of self-reflection and moral grounding.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about personal growth during difficult times.
One can imagine the look the two lovers exchanged; it was like a flame, for virtuous lovers have not a shred of hypocrisy.
Loyalty in time of need is possibly one of the noblest of victories a courtier can win over himself.
Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.
Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?
However gross a man may be, the minute he expresses a strong and genuine affection, some inner secretion alters his features, animates his gestures, and colors his voice. The stupidest man will often, under the stress of passion, achieve heights of eloquence, in thought if not in language, and seem to move in some luminous sphere. Goriot's voice and gesture had at this moment the power of communication that characterizes the great actor. Are not our finer feelings the poems of the human will?
Love is a religion, and its rituals cost more than those of other religions. It goes by quickly and, like a street urchin, it likes to mark its passage by a trail of devastation.
There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.
There's been some research in cognitive science, I'm told, that discloses that there have always been perhaps 10 to 15 percent of people who are, as Pascal puts it, so made that they cannot believe. To us, when people talk about faith, it's white noise.
Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant.
I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.
No one can define or measure justice, democracy, security, freedom, truth, or love. No one can define or measure any value. But if no one speaks up for them, if systems arenβt designed to produce them, if we donβt speak about them and point toward their presence or absence, they will cease to exist.
The past stays put, I just keep moving farther away from it.
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