Unbounded courage and compassion join'd, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete.
Joseph AddisonRead
The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the complexity and often hidden pathways that connect events and their outcomes, which are difficult to predict or understand.
Joseph Addison highlights the intricate nature of causation and how the links between events and their effects are not always visible or comprehensible to us. It suggests that while we may attempt to foresee outcomes and analyze causes, the actual journey from one to the other often occurs in subtle, unrecognizable ways, making it a profound reflection on our understanding of change and consequence.
Themes
CausationEventsUnderstandingForesightSagacity
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the unpredictability of historical events, this quote serves to illustrate how many factors contribute to outcomes.
More from Joseph Addison
All quotes βGood nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.
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Admiration is a very short lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it still be fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view.
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It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights.
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An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
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