Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony must investigate discord.
Interpretation
To create something positive, one must first understand its opposite or challenge.
This quote by Plutarch suggests that in order to create health through medicine, one must closely study disease. Similarly, in music, the creation of harmony necessitates an understanding and exploration of discord. This idea can be applied broadly, as it highlights the importance of comprehending difficulties or contrasts to foster growth and creativity in various fields.
In practice
In a speech on the importance of holistic health, one could quote this to emphasize understanding illnesses.
Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face, where the character is revealed, than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men.
It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief - the other contempt.
Come back with your shield - or on it
The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.
For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.
Our senses through ignorance of Reality, falsely tell us that what appears to be, is. FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real
Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant clothes.
What is taken away is greater than the sum of what was there. This may not be mathematically possible; but it is emotionally possible.
Some journeys are direct, and some are circuitous; some are heroic, and some are fearful and muddled. But every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the worldβs deep need
Just think how many thoughts a blanket smothers while one lies alone in bed, and how many unhappy dreams it keeps warm.
There are things than cannot ever occur with any precision. They are too big and too magnificent to be contained in mere facts. They are merely trying to occur, they are checking whether the ground of reality can carry them. And they quickly withdraw, fearing to loose their integrity in the frailty of realization.
Each individual creature on this beautiful planet is created by God to fulfil a particular role. Whatever I have achieved in life is through His help and an expression of His will. He showered His grace on me through some outstanding teachers and colleagues and when I pay my tributes to these fine persons, I am merely praising His glory. We are all born with a divine fire in us.
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