I began writing when I was still in the British Foreign Service, and it was then understood that even if you wrote about butterfly collecting, you used another name.
John Le CarreRead
I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral,' Smiley went on, more lightly. 'Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Compassion is a finite resource, and spreading it too thinly may prevent us from addressing more significant issues.
In this quote, John Le Carré suggests that while compassion is important, it can be limited. If we extend our concern to every minor issue or individual, we may fail to engage deeply with larger, more pressing matters. This perspective invites reflection on how we allocate our emotional energy and encourages prioritizing our focus to make a more substantial impact where it matters most.
Themes
CompassionPrioritiesConcernResourcesFocus
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on community service, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of prioritizing efforts.
More from John Le Carre
All quotes →In every war zone that I've been in, there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis, the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know.
John Le CarreRead
The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.
John Le CarreRead
The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous.
John Le CarreRead
Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen.
John Le CarreRead
If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab the reader by the ear, and make him sit down and listen. Make him laugh, make him feel. We all want to be entertained at a very high level.
John Le CarreRead
Similar quotes
Perhaps looking out through big baby eyes - if we could - would not be as revelatory experience as many imagine. We might see a world inhabited by objects and people, a world infused with causation, agency, and morality - a world that would surprise us not by its freshness but by its familiarity.
Paul BloomRead
This idea of the transcendent power of the Supreme Being is essentially connected with that by which the whole duty of man is summed up: obedience to His will.
John Quincy AdamsRead
As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
The 'free-floating intellectual' may occupy himself with problems because of their inherent interest and importance, perhaps to little effect.
Noam ChomskyRead
Astrology is one of the intuitive methods like the I Ching, geomantics, and other divinatory procedures. It is based upon the synchronicity principle, meaningful coincidence. ... Astrology is a naively projected psychology in which the different attitudes and temperaments of man are represented as gods and identified with planets and zodiacal constellations.
Carl JungRead
I say no body of men are fit to make Presidents, judges and generals, unless they themselves supply the best specimens of the same; and that supplying one or two such specimens illuminates the whole body for a thousand years.
Walt WhitmanRead