Yesterday I lived, today I suffer, tomorrow I die; but I still think fondly, today and tomorrow, of yesterday.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the inevitability of suffering and mortality while emphasizing the importance of cherishing past experiences.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's quote captures the essence of human existence, highlighting the continuous cycle of life, suffering, and death. It suggests that while we must confront hardships and the reality of our mortality, there is value in holding onto the positive memories and experiences of the past. This duality of existence encourages an appreciation for life, even in the face of inevitable challenges.
In practice
This quote could be used in a motivational speech to emphasize the importance of cherishing memories despite life's challenges.
Why should not every individual man have existed more than once upon this world? Why should I not come back as often as I am capable of acquiring fresh knowledge? Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest? Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the schools had dissipated and debilitated it, lighted upon it at once?
The search for truth is more precious than its possession.
A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes
Absolute truth belongs to Thee alone.
Pleasures, riches, honor and joy are sure to have care, disgrace, adversity and affliction in their train. There is no pleasure without pain, no joy without sorrow. O the folly of expecting lasting felicity in a vale of tears, or a paradise in a ruined world.
Would that we could at once paint with the eyes! In the long way from the eye through the arm to the pencil, how much is lost!
What I quickly discovered is that our so-called new South Africa has as much material for a story-teller as the old one. The landscape hasn't really changed. Who is in power now is different to who was in power then, but the squatter camps grow like cancer, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
I am transcribing a book that I have, in a sense, not yet written, and in another sense, have always written, and in another sense, am currently writing, and in another sense, am always writing, and in another sense, will never write.
Yet a personal God can become a grave liability. He can be a mere idol carved in our own image, a projection of our limited needs, fears and desires. We can assume that he loves what we love and hates what we hate, endorsing our prejudices instead of compelling us to transcend them.
Bridges would not be safer if only people who knew the proper definition of a real number were allowed to design them.
It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.
Six feet of dirt make all men equal.
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