There's the constant concern with what happens to you when you die. Every society thinks about that and makes things to deal with that.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on how societies universally contemplate death and create ways to address the fear and uncertainty surrounding it.
Neil Macgregor's quote emphasizes the universal human concern regarding death and the afterlife. It suggests that all societies, throughout history, have grappled with the implications of mortality, leading them to develop rituals, beliefs, and practices designed to manage the fear and mystery associated with dying. This concern not only reflects our mortality but also speaks to the cultural significance of how we honor and remember the dead.
In practice
During a memorial service, one might quote this to acknowledge the shared human experience of dealing with death.
Google the name Prometheus, and see how often it has been given to innovations in many different fields, notably science, medicine and space exploration. The fire he stole can be seen, too, as the spark generating all artistic creativity.
In the world of the Middle East at the moment, the debates are shrill. But ... the wisest voice of all of them may well be the voice of this mute thing, the Cyrus cylinder.
The deciphering of ancient scripts changed forever the way Europeans were able to imagine the story of humanity, destroying centuries of received authority about the past with repercussions as important for our understanding of time and history as the geological studies of the same period.
The distinction between a gallery and a museum is enormous. The gallery is about looking at a thing of beauty; the purpose of the activity is an aesthetic response. The museum is actually about the object that lets you get into somebody else's life.
Doctors always think anybody doing something they aren't is a quack; also they think all patients are idiots.
It is certain that the easy and obvious philosophy will always, with the generality of mankind, have preference above the accurate.
The trouble with conspiracies, even those that are to everybody's advantage in the long run, is that they are open to abuse. If manipulators really had the powers claimed, they could win the lottery every week. I prefer to point out that they could also win a Nobel Prize for discovering fundamental physical forces hitherto unknown to science.
That term, 'David and Goliath,' has entered our language as a metaphor for improbable victories by some weak party over someone far stronger.
We cannot afford to spend millions and millions over nuclear arms when there is poverty and unemployment all around us.
He that is warm for truth, and fearless in its defense, performs one of the duties of a good man; he strenghtens his own conviction, and guards others from delusion; but steadiness of belief, and boldness of profession, are yet only part of the form of godliness.
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