My mother is not a model. She is not perfect. That awareness is part of learning to love someone. Predicting the actions of someone is an act of love. We persist, even when we get it wrong. That's the beauty of love.
Daniel TammetRead
I had eventually come to understand that friendship was a delicate, gradual process that mustn’t be rushed or seized upon but allowed and encouraged to take its course over time. I pictured it as a butterfly, simultaneously beautiful and fragile, that once afloat belonged to the air and any attempt to grab at it would only destroy it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Friendship is a fragile and beautiful relationship that develops gradually over time.
In this quote, Daniel Tammet reflects on the nature of friendship, comparing it to a delicate butterfly that cannot be forcefully captured or rushed. Instead, true friendship flourishes when it is nurtured organically, emphasizing the importance of patience and gentle encouragement in building strong connections with others.
Themes
FriendshipDelicateRelationshipTrustGrowth
In practice
Example use cases
In a graduation speech about the importance of lasting friendships.
More from Daniel Tammet
All quotes →I'm very comfortable with the idea of there being late bloomers, and for me, of course, there's no difficulty at all in the way that I think of talent and achievement and so on.
Daniel TammetRead
In my mind, numbers and words are far more than squiggles of ink on a page. They have form, color, texture and so on. They come alive to me, which is why as a young child I thought of them as my 'friends.'
Daniel TammetRead
Why learn a number like pi to so many decimal places? The answer I gave then as I do now is that pi is for me an extremely beautiful and utterly unique thing. Like the Mona Lisa or a Mozart symphony, pi is its own reason for loving it.
Daniel TammetRead
Like works of literature, mathematical ideas help expand our circle of empathy, liberating us from the tyranny of a single, parochial point of view. Numbers, properly considered, make us better people.
Daniel TammetRead
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