Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.
Alan AldaRead
For a while in my teens, I was sure I had it. It was about getting to heaven. If heaven existed and lasted forever, then a mere lifetime spent scrupulously following orders was a small investment for an infinite payoff. One day, though, I realized I was no longer a believer, and realizing that, I couldn't go back.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the journey from belief in a promised afterlife to the realization of life's inherent value.
Alan Alda's quote captures a moment of existential awakening, where the author recalls his earlier belief that strictly following rules could secure a place in heaven. Upon losing that belief, he recognizes the futility of such investments in a future that may not exist, leading to a newfound appreciation for the present and the importance of living authentically.
Themes
BeliefHeavenLifeRealizationAuthenticity
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on the meaning of life at a philosophy club meeting.
More from Alan Alda
All quotes →Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in.
Alan AldaRead
Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself.
Alan AldaRead
Here's my Golden Rule for a tarnished age: Be fair with others, but keep after them until they're fair with you.
Alan AldaRead
If you know what you're looking for, that's all you'll get - what's previously known. But when you're open to what's possible, you get something new - that's creativity.
Alan AldaRead
I found I wasn't asking good enough questions because I assumed I knew something. I would box them into a corner with a badly formed question, and they didn't know how to get out of it. Now, I let them take me through it step by step, and I listen.
Alan AldaRead
Similar quotes
Those wanderers must have looked on Earth, circling safely in the narrow zone between fire and ice, and must have guessed that it was the favourite of the Sun's children.
Arthur C. ClarkeRead
Since we live in a society that promotes faddism and temporary superficial adaptation of different values, we are easily convinced that changes have occurred in arenas where there has been little or no change.
Bell HooksRead
To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that languages are human creations.~ The suggestion that truth~ is out there is a legacy of an age in which the world was seen as the creation of a being who had a language his own.
Richard RortyRead
Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt
JuvenalRead
One should never put on one's best trousers to go out to fight for freedom.
Henrik IbsenRead
Though thousand times a thousand in battle one may conquer, yet should one conquer just oneself, one is the greatest conqueror.
Gautama BuddhaRead