Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
Speak of a wolf and you see his tail!
Interpretation
The quote suggests that discussing someone can lead to their presence being felt or noticed.
This quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky conveys the idea that when we talk about someone or something, especially with intention, it often brings it into our awareness or presence, much like how mentioning a wolf may cause it to appear. It highlights the power of words and the influence of our thoughts and discussions on reality, implying that our focus can manifest in our experiences.
In practice
In a discussion on the impact of negative thoughts, this quote can illustrate how naming our fears can empower them.
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
What if, when this fog scatters and flies upward, the whole rotten, slimey city goes with it, rises with the fog and vanishes like smoke.
Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
But do you understand, I cry to him, do you understand that if you have the guillotine in the forefront, and with such glee, it's for the sole reason that cutting heads off is the easiest thing, and having an idea is difficult!
...to return to their 'native soil,' as they say, to the bosom, so to speak, of their mother earth, like frightened children, yearning to fall asleep on the withered bosom of their decrepit mother, and to sleep there for ever, only to escape the horrors that terrify them.
A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.
They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.
As described in 'The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,' the cyclical rebirth of caste in America is a recurring racial nightmare.
And the end of the fight is tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, and the epitaph drear, "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East."
Compassion literally means to feel with, to suffer with. Everyone is capable of compassion, and yet everyone tends to avoid it because it's uncomfortable. And the avoidance produces psychic numbing - resistance to experiencing our pain for the world and other beings.
I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself
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