It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.
Interpretation
A simple act of kindness can brighten someone's day and have a profound impact on their life.
This quote emphasizes the importance of small gestures, like a smile, in creating positive change in the world. Fitzgerald likens a smile to morning light that dispels darkness, suggesting that such simple acts can bring joy and make life more enjoyable for both the giver and the receiver.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of kindness, I would quote Fitzgerald to emphasize a small act's transformative power.
Don't be so anxious about it,' she laughed. 'I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do; I never got the trick of it.' She looked down at him, shy and fatigued. 'So here we are. I told you years ago that I had the makings of Cinderella.' He took her hand; she drew it back instinctively and then replaced it in his. 'Beg your pardon. Not even used to being touched. But I'm not afraid of you, if you stay quiet and don't move suddenly.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
It was about then [1920] that I wrote a line which certain people will not let me forget: "She was a faded but still lovely woman of twenty-seven."
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
But you can love more than just one person, can't you?
A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.
To live entirely without a goal! I have glimpsed this state, and have often attained it, without managing to remain there: I am too weak for such happiness.
On with dance, let joy be unconfined, is my motto; whether there's any dance to dance or any joy to unconfined.
I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.
Living with only the bare essentials has not only provided superficial benefits such as the pleasure of a tidy room or the simple ease of cleaning, it has also led to a more fundamental shift. It's given me a chance to think about what it really means to be happy.
Money won't buy you happiness, but it'll pay for the search
To be kind, honest and have positive thoughts; to forgive those who harm us and treat everyone as a friend; to help those who are suffering and never to consider ourselves superior to anyone else: even if this advice seems rather simplistic, make the effort of seeing whether by following it you can find greater happiness.
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