Socrates told us, "the unexamined life is not worth living." I think he's calling for curiosity, more than knowledge. In every human society at all times and at all levels, the curious are at the leading edge.
Roger EbertRead
I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a perspective on the nature of existence and non-existence, suggesting that life and death are similar states of being.
Roger Ebert reflects on the concept of existence by asserting that he was at peace before his birth and views death as a return to that same peaceful state. This thought challenges the fear often associated with death, proposing instead that it may simply be a transition to a state similar to the one we experienced before we existed, inviting contemplation on the value and temporality of life.
Themes
LifeDeathExistencePeacePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
During a funeral speech to provide comfort to the grieving.
More from Roger Ebert
All quotes βVincent Gallo has put a curse on my colon and a hex on my prostate. He called me a 'fat pig' in the New York Post and told the New York Observer I have 'the physique of a slave-trader.' He is angry at me because I said his 'The Brown Bunny' was the worst movie in the history of the Cannes Film Festival... _x000D_ it is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of 'The Brown Bunny.'
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I was born inside the movie of my life. The visuals were before me, the audio surrounded me, the plot unfolded inevitably but not necessarily. I don't remember how I got into the movie, but it continues to entertain me.
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Why do alcoholics begin down the same hazardous road day after day? They are in search of that elusive window of well-being that opens when you drink your way out of a hangover and aren't yet drunk all over again. The alcoholic's day consists of trying to keep that window open.
Roger EbertRead
There are no guarantees. But there is also nothing to fear. We come from oblivion when we are born. We return to oblivion when we die. The astonishing thing is this period of in-between.
Roger EbertRead
Parents and schools should place great emphasis on the idea that it is all right to be different. Racism and all the other 'isms' grow from primitive tribalism, the instinctive hostility against those of another tribe, race, religion, nationality, class or whatever. You are a lucky child if your parents taught you to accept diversity.
Roger EbertRead
Similar quotes
I had studied Irish history. I had read speeches from the dock. I had tried to fuse the vivid past of my nation with the lost spaces of my childhood. I had learned the battles, the ballads, the defeats. It never occurred to me that eventually the power and insistence of a national tradition would offer me only a new way of not belonging.
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In light this bright, after so long in the dark, everything we can see is only black and white. Only glaring shape-outlines we have to blink against.
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The one in front of the gun lives forever
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The proclamation of the Gospel remains the primary service that the Church owes to humanity, to offer the salvation of Christ to the man of our time, who is in many ways humiliated and oppressed, and to orientate in a Christian way cultural, social, and ethical transformations that are unfolding in the world.
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As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.
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If you write a novel where war is nothing but hell and no one experiences excitement or cracks a dark joke, then you're not actually admitting the full experience.
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