...'I thought the rule was that all monks were shaved.' 'Oh, Soto says he is bald under the hair,'said Lu Tze. 'He says the hair is a separate creature that just happens to live on him.
Interpretation
This quote humorously questions the nature of identity and existence, suggesting that we might not be defined entirely by our physical attributes.
In this quote from Terry Pratchett, the characters engage in a lighthearted dialogue that reflects on the nature of self and existence. The idea that Soto, a monk, considers his hair as a separate entity raises philosophical questions about how we categorize our physical and metaphysical selves. It subtly invites us to ponder identity, suggesting that we are more than the sum of our parts, and humorously challenges conventional ideas about what constitutes 'self'.
In practice
During a public discussion about identity and self-perception.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
People will never set their faces decidedly towards heaven, and live like pilgrims, until they really feel that they are in danger of hell.
I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can't imagine someone else's point of view.
Every one of our sinful actions has a suicidal power on the faculties that put that action forth. When you sin with the mind, that sin shrivels the rationality. When you sin with the heart or the emotions, that sin shrivels the emotions. When you sin with the will, that sin destroys and dissolves your willpower and your self-control. Sin is the suicidal action of the self against itself. Sin destroys freedom because sin is an enslaving power.
Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.
It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.
People often ask me whether I prefer theater or film, and the answer is that I prefer the one I'm not doing: The grass is always greener.
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