Where everything is bad it must be good to know the worst.
F. H. BradleyRead
The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is even condemned to find much of his own mind.
Interpretation
Understanding human nature requires delving into complex and unclear aspects of existence.
F. H. Bradley's quote suggests that exploring human nature and trying to articulate profound truths is a challenging endeavor, often muddied by personal biases and subjective opinions. The act of seeking wisdom about humanity is akin to fishing in murky waters, where clarity is hard to find, and one may frequently encounter reflections of their own thoughts rather than objective truths.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the complexities of understanding why people act the way they do.
Where everything is bad it must be good to know the worst.
The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness.
True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.
Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.
Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct.
One said of suicide, As long as one has brains one should not blow them out. And another answered, But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot.
The worldly comforts are not for me. I am like a traveler, who takes rest under a tree in the shade and then goes on his way.
Indeed, the test of orderliness in a country is not the number of millionaires it owns, but the absence of starvation among its masses.
To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.
The beautiful uncut hair of graves.
All such action would cease if those powerful elemental forces were to cease stirring within us.
The love of power, like the love of money, increases with the possession of it; and we know in what ruin these baneful passions have involved human societies in all ages when they have been let loose and suffered to rage uncontrolled - There is no restraint like the pervading eye of the virtuous citizens.
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