I was early taught by sorrow to shed tears, and now when sudden joy lights up, or any unexpected sorrow strikes my heart, I find it difficult to repress the full and swelling tide of feeling.
Interpretation
Sorrow and joy are deeply connected; experiencing one enhances the ability to feel the other.
In this quote, Dorothea Dix reflects on how early experiences of sorrow have shaped her emotional responses. She suggests that the act of shedding tears in response to sorrow has made her emotional life richer, leading to an intense and sometimes overwhelming experience of joy and sadness. This speaks to the complexity of human emotions, where the ability to feel deep sorrow can enhance the joy when it arrives, thus making it difficult to control or repress one's feelings.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a discussion on the emotional spectrum at a psychology seminar.
Steady, firm, and kind government of prisoners is the truest humanity and the best exercise of duty. It is with convicts as with children: unseasonable indulgence, indiscreetly granted, leads to mischiefs which we may deplore but cannot repair.
I shall be well enough when I get to Kentucky or Alabama. The tonic I need is the tonic of opposition. That always sets me on my feet.
Time passed solely in the pursuit of pleasure leaves no solid enjoyment for the future; but from the hours you spend in reading and studying useful books, you will gather a golden harvest in future years.
With care and patience, people may accomplish things which, to an indolent person, would appear impossible.
My wish is to be known only thru my work.
We are not sent into this world mainly to enjoy the loveliness therein, nor to sit us down in passive ease; no, we were sent here for action. The soul that seeks to do the will of God with a pure heart, fervently, does not yield to the lethargy of ease.
One has to realize that the powerful industrial groups concerned in the manufacture of arms are doing their best in all countries to prevent the peaceful settlement of international disputes, and that rulers can achieve this great end only if they are sure of the vigorous support of the majority of their peoples.
The overwhelming pressure of mechanization evident in the newspaper and the magazine, has led to the creation of vast monopolies of communication. Their entrenched positions involve a continuous, systematic, ruthless destruction of elements of permanence essential to cultural activity.
Alive without breath, As cold as death; Never thirsty, ever drinking, All in mail never clinking.
One should never put on one's best trousers to go out to fight for freedom.
When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power, we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.
To get overprotective about particular readings of the Bible is always in danger of idolatry.
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