We are slow to believe that which if believed would hurt our feelings.
OvidRead
That's one of the greatest curses ever inflicted on the human race, memory.
Interpretation
Memory is portrayed as a burden that can cause suffering.
In this quote, Ovid suggests that memory, while essential to human experience, can also be a source of pain and anguish. It implies that remembering past hardships and regrets can burden individuals, leading to a cursed existence, highlighting the dual nature of memory as both a gift and a curse in the human condition.
In practice
In a mental health seminar discussing the impact of trauma on our memories.
We are slow to believe that which if believed would hurt our feelings.
All things human hang by a slender thread; and that which seemed to stand strong suddenly falls and sinks in ruins.
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow.
Fas est ab hoste doceri._x000D_ One should learn even from one's enemies.
Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.
The end doesn't justify the means.
The arrow of time doesn't move forward forever. There's a phase in the history of the universe where you go from low entropy to high entropy. But then, once you reach the locally maximum entropy you can get to, there's no more arrow of time.
But I killed a man just like my mother did. David says it’s okay because I didn’t mean to, and because he was about to kill that little kid. But I’m pretty sure my mom didn’t mean to kill my dad, either, so what difference does that make, meaning or not meaning to do something? Accident or on purpose, the result is the same, and that’s one fewer life than there should be in the world.
Love of the republic in a democracy, is a love of the democracy; love of the democracy is that of equality. Love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality.
When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.
It can be argued that rapists deserve to be raped, that mutilators deserve to be mutilated. Most societies, however, refrain from responding in this way because the punishment is not only degrading to those on whom it is imposed, but it is also degrading to the society that engages in the same behavior as the criminals.
If trust must be earned, hasn't God unequivocally earned our trust with the bark on the raw wounds, the thorns pressed into the brow, your name on the cracked lips.
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