Obviously, you would give your life for your children, or give them the last biscuit on the plate. But to me, the trick in life is to take that sense of generosity between kin, make it apply to the extended family and to your neighbour, your village and beyond.
Interpretation
Generosity should extend beyond immediate family to the wider community.
In this quote, Tom Stoppard emphasizes the importance of extending familial love and generosity not only to one's children and close relatives but also to the larger community. He suggests that the caring instincts we have toward our immediate family should inspire us to act with the same kindness and compassion towards our neighbors and those beyond our immediate circle, thereby fostering a sense of community and interconnectedness.
In practice
This quote would be apt in a speech about fostering community spirit.
Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something which is very, very deep in us and is very easily obscured, and is also very easily denied, which is the instinct towards the other person, other than toward the self.
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory.
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time.
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.
All we got is the family unbroke.
Parents always make their worst mistakes with their oldest children. That's when parents know the least and care the most, so they're more likely to be wrong and also more likely to insist that they're right.
The innocence of such children doesn't answer our deepest questions about this vale of tears to which we are condemned, but it helps to dispel them. That is the secret to family life.
Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.
The righteous man walks in his integrity; His children are blessed after him.
Make sure your family and loved ones don’t interrupt you during your_x000D_ writing time. If you’re a lawyer or doctor, friends don’t just stop by the office to chat or interrupt you from your work. But for some reason, people think writing is different. It isn’t, and you need to make clear that this is sacred time.
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