The whole world might know you and acclaim you, but someone in the past, forever unreachable, forever unknowing, spoils it all.
Interpretation
The acknowledgment and acclaim of the world can feel empty if there is someone from the past whose approval we will never receive.
This quote by Isaac Asimov reflects on the human longing for connection and approval, illustrating that fame and recognition can feel hollow when overshadowed by the desire for validation from those we can no longer reach. It emphasizes the poignant reality that our past relationships, whether positive or negative, shape our present self-image and emotional fulfillment, reminding us that some relationships can leave a lasting impact regardless of time or distance.
In practice
During a motivational speech about the importance of being true to oneself despite fame.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
During the century after Newton, it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.
I hope that at this moment you are thinking of yourself as a human being rather than as an American, Asian, European, African, or member of any particular country. These loyalties are secondary.
Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.
"Do you know," Ivan Bunin recalls Anton Chekhov saying to him in 1899, near the end of his too-short life, "for how many years I shall be read? Seven." "Why seven?" Bunin asked. "Well," Chekhov answered, "seven and a half then."
The continual cracking of your feet on the road makes a certain quantity of road come up into you. When a man dies they say he returns to clay but too much walking fills you up with clay far sooner (or buries bits of you along the road) and brings your death half-way to meet you. It is not easy to know what is the best way to move yourself from one place to another.
We do not realise that we are children of eternity. If we did, then success would be no success, and failure would be no failure to us.
Fain would we remain barbarians, if our claim to civilization were to be based on the gruesome glory of war.
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