We have to keep company with supposedly bad characters if we are to survive and not succumb to mental atrophy. People of good character, so called, are the ones who end up boring us to death.
Interpretation
Embracing diverse perspectives, even from those deemed undesirable, fosters mental growth and prevents stagnation.
This quote by Thomas Bernhard suggests that engaging with individuals who challenge our views or have different characteristics can stimulate our minds and promote intellectual vitality. In contrast, surrounding ourselves solely with those who conform to conventional standards of 'good character' may lead to predictable conversations that dull our curiosity and creativity, ultimately resulting in a stagnant mindset.
In practice
During a panel discussion on creative thinking, you might use this quote to emphasize the importance of listening to unconventional ideas.
In theory we understand people, but in practice we can't put up with them, I thought, deal with them for the most part reluctantly and always treat them from our point of view. We should observe and treat people not from our point of view but from all angles, I thought, associate with them in such a way that we can say we associate with them so to speak in a completely unbiased way, which however isn't possible, since we actually are always biased against everybody.
Only when I am by seawater can I truly breathe, to say nothing of my ability to think.
Everyone is a virtuoso on his own instrument, but together they add up to an intolerable cacophony.
I would be the unhappiest person imaginable, confronted daily with disastrous works crying out with errors, imprecision, carelessness, amateurishness. I avoided this punishment by destroying them, I thought, and suddenly I took great pleasure in the word destroying.
Everything is what it is, that's all. If we keep attaching meanings and mysteries to everything we perceive, everything we see that is, and to everything that goes on inside us, we are bound to go crazy sooner or later, I thought.
Women were like rivers, their banks were unreachable, the night often rang with the cries of the drowned.
Memory is so corrupt that you remember only what you want to; if you want to forget about something, slowly but surely you do.
We now think it hilarious that medieval streets were used as open sewers. Equally, our descendants will say: 'You won't believe this, but people were once allowed to hurl a couple of tons of dangerous metal around smashing into each other.'
Imprisoned in every fat man a thin man is wildly signaling to be let out.
If you could really see that tree over there," Merlin said, "you would be so astounded that you'd fall over." "Really? But why?" asked Arthur. "It's just a tree." "No," Merlin said, "It's just a tree in your mind. To another mind it is an expression of infinite spirit and beauty. In God's mind it is a dear child, sweeter than anything you can imagine.
We can suspend disbelief about Harry Potter, and we do the same thing with God, and we do the same thing with human rights, and we do the same thing with money.
If we truly worship God, acknowledging and adoring his infinite worth, we find ourselves impelled to make him known to others, in order that they may worship him too. Thus worship leads to witness, and witness in its turn to worship, in a perpetual circle.
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