Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
I may be mistaken but it seems to me that a man may be judged by his laugh, and that if at first encounter you like the laugh of a person completely unknown to you, you may say with assurance that he is good.
Interpretation
A person's laughter can reflect their character, indicating goodness and kindness.
This quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky suggests that laughter is a fundamental aspect of a person's personality. It implies that an individual's laugh can be a genuine expression of their intrinsic goodness, and that a positive reaction to someone's laughter can serve as an assurance of their moral attributes, ultimately reflecting the profound connection between joy and virtue.
In practice
In a speech on the importance of kindness, one could use this quote to emphasize that laughter can indicate a person's goodness.
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
What if, when this fog scatters and flies upward, the whole rotten, slimey city goes with it, rises with the fog and vanishes like smoke.
Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
But do you understand, I cry to him, do you understand that if you have the guillotine in the forefront, and with such glee, it's for the sole reason that cutting heads off is the easiest thing, and having an idea is difficult!
...to return to their 'native soil,' as they say, to the bosom, so to speak, of their mother earth, like frightened children, yearning to fall asleep on the withered bosom of their decrepit mother, and to sleep there for ever, only to escape the horrors that terrify them.
Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought.
I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now.
Philosophers' Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.
History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past
Commerce has set the mark of selfishness, the signet of its all-enslaving power, upon a shining ore, and called it gold: before whose image bow the vulgar great, the vainly rich, the miserable proud, the mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings, and with blind feelings reverence the power that grinds them to the dust of misery.
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.
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