It's not about curing the disease, but healing the life; then the physical benefits come.
Bernie SiegelRead
If God had made a perfect world, it would be a magic trick, not creation, with no meaning or place for us to learn and create. Mankind is not yet ready for a perfect world. We do not know how to appreciate perfection.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that imperfection in the world allows for learning, growth, and creativity.
Bernie Siegel's quote reflects the idea that a perfect world would eliminate the opportunities for human growth and understanding, as perfection would leave no room for learning, creation, or appreciation. It argues that the imperfections of our reality are essential for humanity, helping us to develop our understanding of life and ourselves.
Themes
PerfectionImperfectionGrowthLearningCreation
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about embracing life's challenges, this quote illustrates the necessity of imperfection.
More from Bernie Siegel
All quotes →Diseases can be our spiritual flat tires - disruptions in our lives that seem to be disasters at the time but end by redirecting our lives in a meaningful way.
Bernie SiegelRead
It is astounding how much the immune system is strengthened by reducing daily mental stress levels with either visualization or meditation. The other great tonic for the immune system is love—loving ourselves as well as others.
Bernie SiegelRead
I truly feel the best doctors are ones who are criticized by nurses, patients and family. They do not make excuses and learn from their mistakes.
Bernie SiegelRead
Part of my evolution has been to learn how painful most people's childhoods are. They grow up not liking themselves, not loving themselves. Ask people if they were lovable the minute they were born, and watch them sit back and have to think about it. One lady said, 'I suppose so.' That's painful.
Bernie SiegelRead
Being a survivor doesn't mean being strong - it's telling people when you need a meal or a ride, company, whatever. It's paying attention to heart wisdom, feelings, not living a role, but having a unique, authentic life, having something to contribute, finding time to love and laugh. All these things are qualities of survivors.
Bernie SiegelRead
Similar quotes
Because there is no cosmic point to the life that each of us perceives on this distant bit of dust at galaxy's edge, all the more reason for us to maintain in proper balance what we have here. Because there is nothing else. Nothing. This is it. And quite enough, all in all.
Gore VidalRead
If gold has been prized because it is the most inert element, changeless and incorruptible, water is prized for the opposite reason -- its fluidity, mobility, changeability that make it a necessity and a metaphor for life itself. To value gold over water is to value economy over ecology, that which can be locked up over that which connects all things.
Rebecca SolnitRead
I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?
John SteinbeckRead
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
Bertrand RussellRead
Pessimism is a very easy way out because it is a short view of life. If you look at what is happening around us today, you can't help but feel that life is a terrible complexity of problems. But if you look back a few thousand years, you realize that we have advanced fantastically. If you take a long view, I do not see how you can be pessimistic about the future of mankind.
Robertson DaviesRead
All beings come from a mother's womb. We should have a clear realization of the oneness of all humanity.
Dalai LamaRead