Want and wealth equally harden the human heart, as frost and fire are both alien to the human flesh. Famine and gluttony alike drive away nature from the heart of man.
Interpretation
This quote highlights how both desire and excess can corrupt human nature.
Theodore Parker's quote suggests that both the strong desire for wealth and the greed for more can lead to a hardening of the human heart, much like how extreme temperatures can damage flesh. He draws parallels between the destructive forces of famine and gluttony, arguing that both extremes can alienate individuals from their natural and compassionate instincts, ultimately making them more self-centered.
In practice
In a discussion about materialism during a seminar, this quote can illustrate the dangers of greed.
A democracy,- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness' sake I will call it the idea of Freedom.
The books which help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is by easy reading; every man that tries it finds it so. But a great book that comes from a great thinker, — it is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth, with beauty too.
No man is so great as mankind.
Outward judgment often fails, inward judgment never.
You may not, cannot, appropriate beauty. It is the wealth of the eye, and a cat may gaze upon a king.
Let us do our duty in our shop or our kitchen, in the market, the street, the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front rank of some great battle, and knew that victory for mankind depended on our bravery, strength, and skill. When we do that, the humblest of us will be serving in that great army which achieves the welfare of the world.
Go another step. Try to live one entire day without words at all. Do it not as a law, but as an experiment. Note your feelings of helplessness and excessive dependence upon words to communicate. Try to find new ways to relate to tohers that are not dependent upon words. Enjoy, savor the day. Learn from it.
The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.
I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings. Standardization is a great peril which threatens American culture.
Being an occupier is not good for anybody's global standing. It is a catalyst for terrorist recruitment.
The new meaning of soul is creativity and mysticism. These will become the foundation of the new psychological type and with him or her will come the new civilization.
In a liquid modern life there are no permanent bonds, and any that we take up for a time must be tied loosely so that they can be untied again, as quickly and as effortlessly as possible, when circumstances change - as they surely will in our liquid modern society, over and over again.
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