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.
F. H. BradleyRead
Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that the essence of our life experiences, when reduced to simple sayings, loses its emotional depth and significance.
F. H. Bradley reflects on the transformation of profound life experiences into mere words. He argues that when we attempt to encapsulate our heartfelt experiences into aphorisms or epigrams, we strip them of their richness and emotional weight, turning them into something lifeless and dull.
Themes
ExperiencesAphorismsEmotionWritingMeaning
In practice
Example use cases
During a public speaking event on the power of storytelling.
More from F. H. Bradley
All quotes βWhere everything is bad it must be good to know the worst.
F. H. BradleyRead
The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness.
F. H. BradleyRead
True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.
F. H. BradleyRead
Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct.
F. H. BradleyRead
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.
F. H. BradleyRead
Similar quotes
I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin.
Antoine De Saint-ExuperyRead
When air conditioning, escalators, and advertising appeared, shopping expanded its scale, but also limited its spontaneity. And it became much more predictable, almost scientific. What had once been the most surprising became the most manipulated.
Rem KoolhaasRead
For benefits return benefits; for injuries return justice without any admixture of revenge.
ConfuciusRead
A man will be justified by faith when, excluded from righteousness of works, he by faith lays hold of the righteousness of Christ, and clothed in it, appears in the sight of God not as a sinner, but as righteous.
John CalvinRead
The river is everywhere at the same time . . . everywhere and the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future.
Hermann HesseRead
We all have a fundamental right to live free from fear, free from crime, and free from disorder - but while we share that right, we also share the duty to secure it.
William BrattonRead