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I think it's relatively easy for people to accept something like telepathy or precognition or teleplasm because their willingness to believe doesn't cost them anything. It doesn't keep them awake nights. But the idea that the evil that men do lives after them is unsettling.
Stephen King
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote reflects on the idea that people are more comfortable believing in fantastical concepts than confronting the lasting impact of their negative actions.

Stephen King's quote emphasizes the discomfort associated with the notion that one's wrongful actions have enduring consequences. While it may be easier for individuals to believe in extraordinary abilities like telepathy or precognition, facing the reality of how evil deeds resonate through time challenges their perceptions of morality and accountability. This highlights a tendency in people to prefer comforting illusions over uncomfortable truths about human nature.

Themes

EvilConsequencesMoralityTruthBelief

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can serve as a poignant reminder during discussions on ethics and decision-making in business.

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