You can't quantify human pain the way you can measure out sugar. Death comes one individual at a time.
Yann MartelRead
We are all born like Catholics, aren't we—in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to God?
Interpretation
The quote suggests that individuals start without inherent beliefs and are influenced by external figures to adopt a religion or belief system.
Yann Martel's quote reflects on the nature of human belief, positing that people enter the world in a neutral state, akin to being in limbo, devoid of predetermined religious inclinations. It implies that religion is often introduced to individuals through external influences, such as family or societal figures, rather than being an innate aspect of their existence.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of faith and belief systems in a philosophy class.
You can't quantify human pain the way you can measure out sugar. Death comes one individual at a time.
Come aboard if your destination is oblivion- it should be our next stop. We can sit together. You can have the window seat if you want. But it's a sad view.
Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it's true; it goes beyond the garland of facts to get to emotional and psychological truths.
The moon was a sharply defined crescent and the sky was perfectly clear. The stars shone with such fierce, contained brilliance that it seemed absurd to call the night dark.
I thought they were helping me. I was so full of trust in them that I felt grateful as they carried me in the air. Only when they threw me overboard did I begin to have doubts.
Art is a gift: you create and then you give away. How readers receive that gift is their business. If they hate it, that’s their response to it. Others respond by liking it. Either way, that is their interaction with the book, which is no longer mine.
Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
When we ask for the abolition of the State and its organs we are always told that we dream of a society composed of men better than they are in reality. But no; a thousand times, no. All we ask is that men should not be made worse than they are, by such institutions!
The only thing America respects is power and power concedes nothing. After the LA Riots, they tried to calm us down and nothing changed since.
When you look at a guy like a Jay-Z or look at a guy like a Nas, you don't necessarily qualify them as conscious rap purely, although they are extremely conscious of the social inequities that prevail.
I believe human beings mark a threshold in the development of the planet, of course, but it is only part of the picture. What Big History can do is show us the nature of our complexity and fragility and the dangers that face us, but it can also show us our power, with collective learning.
In the morning, when the nothing vase casts a something shadow, like the memory of someone you've lost, what can you say about that?
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