Unbounded courage and compassion join'd, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete.
Joseph AddisonRead
A misery is not to be measure from the nature of the evil but from the temper of the sufferer.
Interpretation
Misery is determined more by how one reacts to suffering than by the suffering itself.
Joseph Addison suggests that the experience of misery is subjective and largely influenced by an individual's temperament. Rather than the severity of the circumstances, it is our internal response and perception of those circumstances that shapes our experience of suffering.
In practice
In a motivational talk about resilience, you might quote this to illustrate how mindset affects our experiences.
Unbounded courage and compassion join'd, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete.
Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.
Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.
Admiration is a very short lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it still be fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view.
It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights.
An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
History by apprising them [the people] of the past will enable them to judge of the future. . . . It will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men: it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.
Fear creates a form of spiritual amnesia
Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.
Humility is the mother of giants.
If you abandon the present moment, you cannot live the moments of your daily life deeply.
The sage is not ill, because he sees illness as illness.
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