Envy, propelled by fear, can be even more toxic than anger, because it involves the thought that other people enjoy the good things of life which the envier can't hope to attain through hard work and emulation.
Martha NussbaumRead
Fear is ubiquitous in human life. It starts in infancy with our primal state of helplessness, where we can see what's going on but we can't move to get it. As we grow older we become a little more able to get what we want but then we're going to die so that gives fear another boost.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Fear is a constant part of human existence, originating from our early helplessness and persisting throughout life.
Martha Nussbaum's quote reflects on the pervasive nature of fear in human life, suggesting that it originates from our infancy when we are helpless and aware of our limitations. As we mature, while we gain more control over our desires and actions, the inevitability of death and loss reinforces the experience of fear, making it a fundamental aspect of our existence.
Themes
FearLifeHelplessnessGrowthDeath
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the psychological impacts of fear on human development.
More from Martha Nussbaum
All quotes βThis is true across every single society; we project grossness onto a racial or gender subgroup or caste. A big part of social subordination and discrimination is to ascribe hyper-animality to other groups and use that as an excuse for subordinating them further.
Martha NussbaumRead
Often, we feel helpless in lots of situations in our lives. The way anger gets a grip on us is it seems to be a way to extricate ourselves from helplessness.
Martha NussbaumRead
Courses in the humanities, in particular, often seem impractical, but they are vital, because they stretch your imagination and challenge your mind to become more responsive, more critical, bigger.
Martha NussbaumRead
I find so often, you know, just on a very mundane level; you've got a meeting and your child's acting in a school play. You can't do both things. And it's not simply that you can't do both, but whatever you do, you're going to be neglecting something that's really important.
Martha NussbaumRead
Look at the great tradition of Western political philosophy. Those people were all immersed in revolutionary movements. Most weren't career academics - often, they were too radical to be accepted in the academy. Rousseau's books were banned. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill couldn't hold academic positions because they were atheists.
Martha NussbaumRead
Similar quotes
In one way, I suppose, I have been 'in denial' for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.
Christopher HitchensRead
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
W. E. B. Du BoisRead
Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.
Bertrand RussellRead
The only people who live in a post-black world are four people who live in a little white house on Pennsylvania Avenue. The idea that America is post-racial or post-black because a man I admire, Barack Obama, is president of the United States, is a joke. And I hope no one will even wonder about this crazy fiction again.
Henry Louis GatesRead
And in general, the residents of the town wondered why they all felt hollow just beneath the throat, the result of missing something they had never been able to name in the first place.
Jodi PicoultRead
I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us.
Henri Cartier-BressonRead