Sweet is the voice of a sister in the season of sorrow.
Benjamin DisraeliRead
Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of personal stories over abstract theories in understanding life.
Benjamin Disraeli suggests that to truly understand life, one should focus on biographies rather than mere historical accounts. He implies that biographies present the lived experiences and personal narratives that make life relatable and meaningful, as opposed to theoretical frameworks that may lack a connection to individual experiences.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of understanding human experiences, this quote can highlight the value of personal narratives.
Sweet is the voice of a sister in the season of sorrow.
But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day.
Grief is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
Yes, I am a Jew and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.
The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.
We have found that where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from nature that which the mind put into nature.
The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history.
Are you never afraid of God's judgement in denying him? Most certainly not. I also deny Zeus and Jupiter and Odin and Brahma, but this causes me no qualms. I observe that a very large portion of the human race does not believe in God and suffers no visible punishment in consequence. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.
Instantaneous and mass communication is the mother of mass naivety. Should we then lose hope? Is there any hope? But to lose hope is as dangerous as to nurture false hope. Where then can we find hope that is responsible?
He who sups with the devil had better have a long spoon. The devilry of modernity has its own magic: The [believer] who sups with it will find his spoon getting shorter and shorter--until that last supper in which he is left alone at the table, with no spoon at all and with an empty plate. The devil, one may guess, will by then have gone away to more interesting company.
Man does not live by soap alone; and hygiene, or even health, is not much good unless you can take a healthy view of it or, better still, feel a healthy indifference to it.
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