We live in a world that treats the dead better than the living. We, the living are askers of questions and givers of answers, and we have other grave defects unpardonable by a system that believes death, like money, improves people.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on society's tendency to honor the deceased while neglecting the living, suggesting a flawed value system.
Eduardo Galeano's quote critiques a societal tendency to romanticize the dead while overlooking the struggles and complexities of the living. It highlights how the system often prefers the silence of death, equating it with peace and improvement, while simultaneously burdening the living with harsh realities and unanswered questions. This perspective invites us to reconsider our values and how we treat those who are still seeking answers and resilience in life.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of valuing mental health for the living.
Utopia is on the horizon. I move two steps closer; it moves two steps further away. I walk another ten steps and the horizon runs ten steps further away. As much as I may walk, I'll never reach it. So what's the point of utopia? The point is this: to keep walking.
It is highly improbable that the bureaucrat will put his life on the line. It is absolutely impossible that he'll put his job on the line.
History never really says goodbye. History says, 'See you later.'
The more freedom is extended to business, the more prisons have to be built for those who suffer from that business.
Utopia lies at the horizon. When I draw nearer by two steps, it retreats two steps. If I proceed ten steps forward, it swiftly slips ten steps ahead. No matter how far I go, I can never reach it. What, then, is the purpose of utopia? It is to cause us to advance.
In this world of ours, a world of powerful centers and subjugated outposts, there is no wealth that must not be held in some suspicion.
To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
Disgust for the female body is always tinged with anxiety, since the body symbolizes mortality.
Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow.
The Bible is the proper book for men. There the truth is distinguished from error far more clearly than anywhere else, and one finds something new in it every day. For twenty-eight years, since I became a doctor, I have now constantly read and preached the Bible; and yet I have not exhausted it but find something new in it every day.
I'm in a period of growth and expansion. I'm taking long, hard looks at the world and what's happening in it, analyzing and thinking. I'm trying to become acquainted with the universe - with the part of it I occupy - and trying to settle, for myself, what my relationship with it is.
When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else.
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