QuoteProject
White shall not neutralize the black, nor good compensate bad in man, absolve him so; life's business being just the terrible choice.
Robert Browning
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote highlights the complexity of human nature, suggesting that good and evil cannot simply balance each other out.

Robert Browning's quote reflects on the inherent duality of human nature, indicating that one cannot negate or compensate for the other, whether it be good versus evil or black versus white. It emphasizes that life is fundamentally about making difficult choices, and that these choices are not about finding balance but rather confronting the harsh realities of existence.

Themes

Human NatureChoicesGood And EvilPhilosophyLife'S Complexities

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about the moral dilemmas faced in leadership, one might quote this to illustrate the difficulty of making ethical decisions.

More from Robert Browning

If two lives join, there is oft a scar. They are one and one, with a shadowy third; One near one is too far.
Robert BrowningRead
Tis Man's to explore up and down, inch by inch, with the taper his reason.
Robert BrowningRead
I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds_x000D_ _x000D_ All the world's loves in its unworldliness.
Robert BrowningRead
I dare not so honor my mere wishes and prayers as to put them for a moment beside your noble acts; but this know, I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of sparing me a twinge or two.
Robert BrowningRead
How well I know what I mean to do When the long dark Autumn evenings come, And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue? With the music of all thy voices, dumb In life’s November too! I shall be found by the fire, suppose, O’er a great wise book as beseemeth age, While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows, And I turn the page, and I turn the page, Not verse now, only prose!
Robert BrowningRead
How good is life, the mere living!
Robert BrowningRead

Similar quotes

But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, but can recapture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty in it, the beauty! Till that, too, fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard, cold waking and all its penalties.
Kenneth GrahameRead
The liar was the hottest to defend his veracity, the coward his courage, the ill-bred his gentlemanliness, and the cad his honor
Margaret MitchellRead
Things like that happen all the time in this great big world of ours. It's like taking a boat out on a beautiful lake on a beautiful day and thinking both the sky and the lake are beautiful. So stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they're supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course.
Haruki MurakamiRead
If the total energy of the universe must always remain zero, and it costs energy to create a body, how can a whole universe be created from nothing?
Stephen HawkingRead
All those evil doctrines about God that work misery and madness have their origin in the brains of the wise and prudent, not in the hearts of children.
George MacdonaldRead
Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do.
Virginia WoolfRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.