Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor.
Graham GreeneRead
Time has its revenges, but revenge seems so often sour. Wouldn’t we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife with a husband, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that’s why men have invented God – a being capable of understanding.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the complexities of human relationships and the limitations of understanding each other.
Graham Greene's quote explores the notion that revenge often leads to bitterness and that true understanding among individuals is nearly impossible. He suggests that this lack of understanding is a fundamental aspect of human relationships, where even the closest bonds can fail to bridge the gap between souls. The mention of God highlights humanity's desire for a greater understanding and connection, indicating that our relationships are sometimes fraught with discord inherent to our differing perspectives.
Themes
UnderstandingRevengeRelationshipsHumansAcceptanceGod
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about human nature and relationships during a philosophy lecture.
More from Graham Greene
All quotes →It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn’t the test of man have been carried out in fewer years? Couldn’t we have committed our first major sin at seven, have ruined ourselves for love or hate at ten, have clutched at redemption on a fifteen-year-old deathbed?
Graham GreeneRead
God is love. I don't say the heart doesn't feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint pot of ditch-water. We wouldn't recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us - God's love.
Graham GreeneRead
Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.
Graham GreeneRead
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
Graham GreeneRead
Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.
Graham GreeneRead
Similar quotes
All things flourish, and each returns to its source.
LaoziRead
I take with me the conscience of defeat as a victory banner.
Fernando PessoaRead
To the scientist, nature is always and merely a 'phenomenon,' not in the sense of being defective in reality, but in the sense of being a spectacle presented to his intelligent observation; whereas the events of history are never mere phenomena, never mere spectacles for contemplation, but things which the historian looks, not at, but through, to discern the thought within them.
Robin G. CollingwoodRead
I suppose everybody must be always just a little homesick.
Joseph ConradRead
But I've got to think of myself as the luckiest guy. Robert Johnson only had one album's worth of work as his legacy. That's all that life allowed him.
David BowieRead
Man need not be degraded to a machine by being denied to be a ghost in a machine.
Gilbert RyleRead