Fifty years after half a million gypsies were exterminated in the Second World War - thousands of them in Auschwitz - we're again preparing the mass killing of this minority.
Antonio TabucchiRead
It's the job of intellectuals and writers to cast doubt on perfection.
Interpretation
Intellectuals and writers should challenge and question the idea of perfection.
This quote by Antonio Tabucchi emphasizes the critical role of intellectuals and writers in society. It suggests that instead of accepting perfection as an attainable goal, they should inspire skepticism and inquiry, fostering a deeper understanding of reality and the complexities of life. By casting doubt on notions of perfection, they help illuminate the imperfections inherent in human experience, encouraging others to embrace complexity and growth.
In practice
In a debate about arts and literature, to highlight the importance of questioning established norms.
Fifty years after half a million gypsies were exterminated in the Second World War - thousands of them in Auschwitz - we're again preparing the mass killing of this minority.
Like a blazing comet, I've traversed infinite nights, interstellar spaces of the imagination, voluptuousness and fear. I've been a man, a woman, an old person, a little girl, I've been the crowds on the grand boulevards of the capital cities of the West, I've been the serene Buddha of the East, whose calm and wisdom we envy. I've known honor and dishonor, enthusiasm and exhaustion. ...I've been the sun and the moon, and everything because life is not enough.
Rather than regret for what I have written, I feel regret for what I shall never be able to read.
If I had never joined a church till I had found one that was perfect, I should never have joined one at all.
We Americans know - although others appear to forget - the risk of spreading conflict. We still seek no wider war.
Hearing often-times the still, sad music of humanity, nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power to chasten and subdue.
I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Our allegiance is to the principles always, and not to the persons. Persons are but the embodiments, the illustrations of the principles. If the principles are there, the persons will come by the thousands and millions. If the principle is safe, persons like Buddha will be born by the hundreds and thousands. But if the principle is lost and forgotten and the whole of national life tries to cling round a so-called historical person, woe unto that religion, danger unto that religion!
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