To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.
Harriet Beecher StoweRead
Talk of the abuses of slavery! Humbug! The thing itself is the essence of all abuse!
Interpretation
Harriet Beecher Stowe emphasizes that slavery itself is a fundamental abuse, rendering discussions of its abuses irrelevant.
In this quote, Harriet Beecher Stowe argues that the institution of slavery is inherently abusive, negating the need to discuss its specific abuses. By labeling slavery as 'the essence of all abuse,' she underscores the moral outrage against the practice, suggesting that any secondary discussions about its horrors fall short of addressing the core immorality of enslaving individuals.
In practice
During a lecture on human rights, one might quote Stowe to highlight the fundamental immorality of slavery.
To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.
What's your hurry?" Because now is the only time there ever is to do a thing in," said Miss Ophelia.
So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women.
It is generally understood that men don't aspire after the absolute right, but only to do about as well as the rest of the world.
Death! Strange that there should be such a word, and such a thing, and we ever forget it; that one should be living, warm and beautiful, full of hopes, desires and wants, one day, and the next be gone, utterly gone, and forever!
Once, in an age, God sends to some of us a friend who loves in us, not a false imagining, an unreal character, but, looking through all the rubbish of our imperfections, loves in us the divine ideal of our nature, β loves, not the man that we are, but the angel that we may be.
Witness testimony is always flawed. It's better than circumstantial evidence, sure, but people aren't camcorders; they don't record every action and reaction, and the very act of remembering involves chosing words, actions and images. In other words, any witness who was supposed to be giving a court facts is really just giving them a version of fiction.
Dogmas are collective conceptual prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because they give them a sense of security and a false sense of 'I know.' Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its dogmas.
Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy.
I'm an American, but being a black American, my experience is a particular one, my struggles have been particular.
I believe that used responsibly and in a mature way, the entheogens mediate access to the numinous dimensions of existence, have a great healing and transformative potential, and represent a very important tool for spiritual development.
What is this word that broke through the fence of your teeth, Atreides?
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