The whole life lies in the verb seeing.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
All ways of living can be sanctified, and for each individual, the ideal way is that to which our Lord leads him through the natural development of his tastes and the pressure of circumstances.
Interpretation
Each person's ideal way of living is shaped by their individual tastes and life circumstances.
In this quote, Pierre Teilhard De Chardin emphasizes that there is no singularly correct way to live one's life. Instead, he suggests that the sanctity of one's life choices emerges from how they align with natural inclinations and the contextual pressures faced in life. It conveys the idea that personal growth and fulfillment can come in manifold forms, shaped uniquely for each individual by divine guidance and situational influences.
In practice
In a speech about personal journeys and life choices, this quote can highlight the importance of following one's unique path.
The whole life lies in the verb seeing.
Religion and science are the two conjugated faces or phases of one and the same complete act of knowledge - the only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution and so contemplate, measure and fulfil them.
The mineral world is a much more supple and mobile world than could be imagined by the science of the ancients. Vaguely analogous to the metamorphoses of living creatures, there occurs in the most solid rocks, as we now know, perpetual transformation of a mineral species.
We may, perhaps, imagine that the creation was finished long ago. But that would be quite wrong. It continues still more magnificently, and at the highest levels of the world.
Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth.
If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions. There are a good many points about which I may be diffident, but when it comes to questions of Truth and intellectual independence, there is no holding me - I can envisage no finer end than to sacrifice oneself for a conviction.
Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly, unwearyingly,burrowing always at the very root of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away.
One can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man.
Religion is a search for transcendence. But transcendence isn't necessarily sited in an external god, which can be a very unspiritual, unreligious concept.
The threat of China is not military. The threat of China is they can't be intimidated. Europe you can intimidate. When the US tries to get people to stop investing in Iran, European companies pull out, China disregards it. You look at history and understand why - they've been around for 4,000 years, they have contempt for the barbarians, they just don't give a damn.
Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would he an unprecedented human catastrophe.
It doesn’t matter how old I get, but as long as I continue to live I’ll always discover something new about myself.
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