No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
Interpretation
Dogs and horses understand humans better than philosophers do.
This quote by Herman Melville highlights the deep bond between humans and animals, particularly dogs and horses. It suggests that these animals have a unique ability to perceive human emotions and behaviors, often providing insight into our nature that is more profound than that offered by human philosophers, who can sometimes overcomplicate understanding through abstract reasoning.
In practice
During a speech about the importance of empathy in understanding others.
A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.
The Marquesan girls dance all over; not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands, fingers, ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads.
Dream tonight of peacock tails, Diamond fields and spouter whales. Ills are many, blessing few, But dreams tonight will shelter you.
Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how then with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books should be forbid.
You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.... We are not a nation, so much as a world.
Nirvana means to extinguish the burning fires of the Three Poisons: greed, anger, and ignorance. This can be accomplished by letting go of dissatisfaction.
Let us learn from Christ how to pray, to forgive, to sow peace, and to be near those in need.
The poor are great! The poor are wonderful! The poor are very generous! They give us much more than what we give them.
War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.
The discipline of economics has yet to get over its childish passion for mathematics and for purely theoretical and often highly ideological speculation, at the expense of historical research and collaboration with the other social sciences.
A tear that trembles for a little while _x000D_ Upon the trembling eyelid, till the world _x000D_ Wavers within its circle like a dream, _x000D_ Holds more of meaning in its narrow orb _x000D_ Than all the distant landscape that it blurs.
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