The truth was much more beautiful.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that reality or truth can surpass our expectations or perceptions in beauty and significance.
Alejo Carpentier's quote emphasizes the idea that the truth often holds a deeper, more profound beauty than what we might imagine or perceive. It invites a reflection on reality, suggesting that our preconceived notions and stories about life can sometimes fall short of the exquisite complexity and wonder that genuine experiences and truths can provide.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion about the nature of reality, this quote can be introduced to highlight the depth of truth.
In the Kingdom of Heaven, there is no grandeur to be won, inasmuch as there all is an established hierarchy, the unknown is revealed, existence is infinite, there is no possibility of sacrifice, all is rest and joy. For this reason, bowed down by suffering and duties, beautiful in the midst of his misery, capable of loving in the face of afflictions and trials, man finds his greatness, his fullest measure, only in The Kingdom of This World.
Rivers and mountains are beautiful and made heroes bow and compete to catch the girl- lovely earth. Yet the emperors Shih Huang and Wu Ti were barely able to write. The first emperors of the Tang and Sung dynasties were crude. Genghis Khan, man of his epoch and favored by heaven, knew only how to hunt the great eagle. They are all gone. Only today are we men of feeling.
It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their confusions.
He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything.
...the life which is best for men, both separately, as individuals, and in the mass, as states, is the life which has virtue sufficiently supported by material resources to facilitate participation in the actions that virtue calls for.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
My universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay.
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