Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
It’s all fine to say, “Time will heal everything, this too shall pass away. People will forget”—and things like that when you are not involved, but when you are there is no passage of time, people do not forget and you are in the middle of something that does not change.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Time may heal wounds, but the pain can feel unending when you're experiencing it.
This quote by John Steinbeck reflects on the concept that while time is often said to be a healer, those who are in distress may feel stuck in their suffering. The observation emphasizes that from an outsider's perspective, healing seems inevitable, but for the individual experiencing pain, it can seem unchanging and eternal.
Themes
TimeHealingPainForgettingSuffering
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech at a support group, to help members realize that healing takes time.
More from John Steinbeck
All quotes →At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.
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And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
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The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
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People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
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It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
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