There is no rest for the humble except in despising the great, whose only thought of the people is inspired by self-interest or sadism.
Interpretation
The humble find no peace without looking down on the self-serving nature of the powerful.
This quote suggests that individuals who are humble and grounded will struggle to find true rest or peace unless they distract themselves by criticizing those in positions of power. Celine implies that the powerful, consumed by self-interest and cruelty, are incapable of genuine concern for the people, which humbles others may find necessary to acknowledge in order to justify their own humility.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the moral responsibilities of leaders in society.
Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself.
To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength.
In the kitchens of love, after all, vice is like the pepper in a good sauce; it brings out the flavor, itβs indispensable.
Truth is a pain which will not stop. And the truth of this world is to die. You must choose: either dying or lying. Personally, I have never been able to kill myself
Reason died in 1914, November 1914 ... after that everybody began to rave.
Poor people never, or hardly ever, ask for an explanation of all they have to put up with. They hate one another, and content themselves with that.
Perspective [is] a luxury when your head [is] constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.
It's the people who don't recognize the racism within themselves that can be the most damaging because they don't see it.
I am an Addictive Personality, they say, a natural slave to passion - and many Doctors have warned me against it. I am a High-risk Patient.
Modern Darwinism makes it abundantly clear that many less ruthless traits, some not always admired by robber barons and Fuhrers - altruism, general intelligence, compassion - may be the key to survival.
Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.
I'm hunting for the truth. It might be a kind of poetic truth, and not just a factual one, because behind everything that happens to you, there is another truth, a secret life.
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