The questioners had that beautiful detachment and devotion to stern justice of men dealing in death without being in any danger of it.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the complex relationship between justice and detachment in life and death scenarios.
Ernest Hemingway reflects on the nature of individuals who seek to understand or judge the acts surrounding death and justice, portraying a dichotomy where these questioners possess a sense of detachment from the dangers they scrutinize. They approach the concept of justice with a steadfast commitment, yet are shielded from its immediate consequences, illustrating a philosophical contemplation on moral responsibility and the human condition.
In practice
In a speech about ethical responsibilities, one might use this quote to illustrate the moral complexities of judgment in life.
He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on.
How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.
When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.
There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.
There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.
Fourteen-year-old boys are not part of a well-regulated militia. Members of wacky religious cults are not part of a well-regulated militia. Permitting unregulated citizens to have guns is destroying the security of this free state.
My own luck has been curious all my literary life; I never could tell a lie that anyone would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.
If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything.
Nearly all our originality comes from the stamp that time impresses upon our sensibility.
If a coin comes down heads, that means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. Until that moment the two possibilities were equal. But on another world, it does come down tails. And when that happens, the two worlds split apart.
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