Strictly speaking, there is but one real evil: I mean acute pain. All other complaints are so considerably diminished by time that it is plain the grief is owing to our passion, since the sensation of it vanishes when that is over.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that acute pain is the only true evil, as all other forms of suffering diminish over time, highlighting the impact of our emotions on grief.
Mary Wortley Montagu emphasizes the idea that while many forms of suffering exist, only acute pain qualifies as a genuine evil. Other grievances and complaints tend to lessen over time, indicating that much of our grief is tied to our emotional responses. This perspective invites reflection on how our passions and reactions can amplify our distress, making acute physical pain the most significant and persistent source of suffering.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of suffering and how we cope, this quote can illustrate a key point about pain versus emotional distress.
I regard almost all quarrels of princes on the same footing, and I see nothing that marks man's unreason so positively as war. Indeed, what folly to kill one another for interests often imaginary, and always for the pleasure of persons who do not think themselves even obliged to those who sacrifice themselves for them!
Whoever will cultivate their own mind will find full employment. Every virtue does not only require great care in the planting, but as much daily solicitude in cherishing as exotic fruits and flowers; the vices and passions (which I am afraid are the natural product of the soil) demand perpetual weeding. Add to this the search after knowledge. . . and the longest life is too short.
There is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind.
My chief study all my life has been to lighten misfortunes and multiply pleasures, as far as human nature can.
I have no interest in romanticizing poor black people, having been one of them myself in our beloved hometown of Detroit.
Here we have the paradox, the potentially tragic paradox, that our relatedness to others is an essential aspect of our being, as is our separateness, but any particular person is not a necessary part of our being.
I don't see anything that's come out on WikiLeaks that was a legitimate secret.
But it was not the room’s disorder which was frightening; it was the fact that when one began searching for the key to this disorder, one realized that it was not to be found in any of the usual places. For this was not a matter of habit or circumstance or temperament; it was a matter of punishment and grief.
I think overall the majority of people who are practicing it as a subject are following the right line. For the aberration, don't blame yoga or the whole community of yogis
Hindustan had become free. Pakistan had become independent soon after its inception but man was still slave in both these countries -- slave of prejudice … slave of religious fanaticism … slave of barbarity and inhumanity.
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