The only thing in the world worth a damn is the strange, touching, pathetic, awesome nobility of the individual human spirit.
Interpretation
The essence of humanity lies in the individuality and resilience of each person.
This quote emphasizes the profound value of the individual human spirit, suggesting that the true worth of existence is found in the unique struggles, emotions, and dignities of each person. It acknowledges the complexity and nobility inherent in each individual, recognizing both their vulnerability and strength as key elements of the human experience.
In practice
In a motivational speech about perseverance and human strength.
At times it seems as if arranging to have no commitment of any kind to anyone would be a special freedom. But in fact the whole idea works in reverse. The most deadly commitment of all is to be committed only to one's self. Some come to realize this after they are in the nursing home.
Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather.
In polite society, we call our obsessions hobbies.
Between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections which we call our character.
Two possibilities: making oneself infinitely small or being so. The second is perfection, that is to say, inactivity, the first is beginning, that is to say, action.
When it comes to God's existence, I'm not an atheist and I'm not agnostic. I'm an acrostic. The whole thing puzzles me.
Your emotional capacity is an empty motor, and your values are the fuel with which your mind fills it. If you choose a mix of contradictions, it will clog your motor, corrode your transmission and wreck you on your first attempt to move with a machine which you, the driver, have corrupted.
The only people who are obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly obese. That, in erotic terms, is the Catholic church, in a nutshell.
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