By all means continue destroying my possessions. I daresay I have too many.
J. K. RowlingRead
The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.
Interpretation
Truth can have both positive and negative effects and requires careful handling.
This quote by J. K. Rowling highlights the dual nature of truth, suggesting that while it can be beautiful in its clarity and honesty, it can also be painful or challenging when revealed. Thus, the speaker emphasizes the importance of approaching the truth with care and consideration, recognizing its potential impact on individuals and situations.
In practice
During a motivational speech about honesty in leadership.
By all means continue destroying my possessions. I daresay I have too many.
Where are you heading, if you’ve got the choice?” James lifted an invisible sword. “‘Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!’ Like my dad.” Snape made a small, disparaging noise. James turned on him. “Got a problem with that?” “No,” said Snape, though his slight sneer said otherwise. “If you’d rather be brawny than brainy —” “Where’re you hoping to go, seeing as you’re neither?” interjected Sirius.
Depression isn't just being a bit sad. It's feeling nothing. It's not wanting to be alive anymore.
I tell you, that dragon's the most horrible animal I've ever met, but the way Hagrid goes on about it, you'd think it was a fluffy little bunny rabbit.
Imagine losing fingernails, Harry! That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn't it?
The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.
The things hardest to bear are sweetest to remember.
To accept one’s past – one’s history – is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.
Alas! You complain that your soul is out of tune. Then ask the Master to tune the heart-strings.
In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.
Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.
Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.
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