Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed. Kings must be managed, for men want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal.
Thomas HardyRead
And yet to every bad there is a worse.
Interpretation
Every negative situation has the potential for even greater negativity.
This quote by Thomas Hardy suggests a philosophical perspective on the nature of misfortune and suffering. It implies that while one might experience a bad situation, there is always the possibility that circumstances could worsen, highlighting the relativity of hardship and the importance of perspective in evaluating our experiences.
In practice
In a motivational speech about resilience, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of finding strength in challenging times.
Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed. Kings must be managed, for men want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal.
Because what's the use of learning that I am one of a long row only - finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that's all. The best is not to remember your nature and your past doings have been just like thousands' and thousands', and that your coming life and doings'll be like thousands' and thousands'.
But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes.
I wish I had never been born--there or anywhere else.
Her affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being; it enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to touch herβdoubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there.
The trees have inquisitive eyes, haven't they? -that is, seem as if they had. And the river says,-'Why do ye trouble me with your looks?' And you seem to see numbers of to-morrows just all in a line, the first of them the biggest and clearest, the others getting smaller and smaller as they stand further away; but they all seem very fierce and cruel and as if they said, 'I'm coming! Beware of me! Beware of me!
Every one in a crowd has the power to throw dirt; none out of ten have the inclination.
There lies the weaknesss of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but "bared the miracles." (That is, explained the miracles. - ed.) Oddly enough, we must be satisfied to acknowledge the "miracle" without there being any legitimate way for us to approach it . I am forced to add that just to keep you from thinking that -weakened by age-I have fallen prey to the clergy.
What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?
At death, you're going to be needing some spiritual guidance and some kind of inner knowledge that extends beyond the boundaries of the physical world... it's what's inside that counts.
Nothing is poorer than a truth expressed as it was thought. Committed to writing in such cases, it is not even a bad photograph. Truth wants to be startled abruptly, at one stroke, from her self-immersion, whether by uproar, music or cries for help.
Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory, and the truth of every passion wants some pretence to make it live.
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