Success on a cosmic level completely eludes me. I'm deeply suspicious of things being too good. It's part of my superstition, I think, to generate pain in order to give the illusion of gain. I'm not saying I reject success, but honestly, I don't quite know how to deal with it. It's an old feeling: As soon as you have the thing you've been going after all your life, that reasonable degree of security, you start kicking against it, doubting it.
Interpretation
The struggle with success often leads to doubt and suspicion about its authenticity.
Hugh Laurie's quote reflects the complexity of achieving success and the psychological ambivalence that can accompany it. While he acknowledges the pursuit and eventual attainment of success, he expresses feelings of distrust and discomfort towards it, suggesting that the joy of accomplishment may be tainted by the fear of losing it or the belief that happiness might bring unintended consequences, thus leading one to generate negativity as a coping mechanism.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a motivational talk to encourage self-reflection on the nature of personal success.
L.A. runs on optimism, enthusiasm and flattery. I think you can go a little bit crazy. I've heard people say there's a limit to the number of years you can stay in this city without going slightly mad. It's just too damn sunny in every dimension - weather-wise, socially and professionally.
Acting is largely about putting on masks, and music is about removing them.
I know a lot of people think therapy is about sitting around staring at your own navel - but it's staring at your own navel with a goal. And the goal is to one day to see the world in a better way and treat your loved ones with more kindness and have more to give.
As a real person, he wouldn't last a minute, would he? But drama is about imperfection. And we've moved away from the aspirational hero. We got tired of it, it was dull. If I was House's friend, I would hate it. How he so resolutely refuses to be happy or take the kind-hearted road. But we don't always like morally good people, do we?
To tell you the truth, the older I get, the less I know. I keep meeting people, both older and younger, who seem to have accrued so much more knowledge or expertise or certainty about who they are and the jobs they do. I just marvel at it.
I have a reverence for medicine because I hero-worshiped my father [a former doctor], and because I admire doctors, I admire study, empiricism and rational thought. I don't study, empiricize or think rationally myself - but I admire it in others.
The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live.
Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship.
Environmental degradation, overpopulation, refugees, narcotics, terrorism, world crime movements, and organized crime are worldwide problems that don't stop at a nation's borders.
It is the worst oppression, that is done by colour of justice
Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts. He who doth not kill sin in this way takes no steps toward his journey's end.
To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages today that determine success--the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history--with a society that provides opportunities for all.
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