Yesterday I lived, today I suffer, tomorrow I die; but I still think fondly, today and tomorrow, of yesterday.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the inevitability of suffering and mortality while emphasizing the importance of cherishing past experiences.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's quote captures the essence of human existence, highlighting the continuous cycle of life, suffering, and death. It suggests that while we must confront hardships and the reality of our mortality, there is value in holding onto the positive memories and experiences of the past. This duality of existence encourages an appreciation for life, even in the face of inevitable challenges.
In practice
This quote could be used in a motivational speech to emphasize the importance of cherishing memories despite life's challenges.
Why should not every individual man have existed more than once upon this world? Why should I not come back as often as I am capable of acquiring fresh knowledge? Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest? Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the schools had dissipated and debilitated it, lighted upon it at once?
The search for truth is more precious than its possession.
A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes
Absolute truth belongs to Thee alone.
Pleasures, riches, honor and joy are sure to have care, disgrace, adversity and affliction in their train. There is no pleasure without pain, no joy without sorrow. O the folly of expecting lasting felicity in a vale of tears, or a paradise in a ruined world.
Would that we could at once paint with the eyes! In the long way from the eye through the arm to the pencil, how much is lost!
In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their self-esteem are likely to be heroic exceptions.
All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny.
No one β¦ can entirely step out of his time, that despite his keenness of vision his thinking is in many ways bound to be influenced by the mentality of his time
The American people do not like neutrality. They would rather a man were on the wrong side than on neither.
Of course there are people who think of 'heaven' as a kind of pie-in-the-sky dream of an afterlife to make the thought of dying less awful. No doubt that's a problem as old as the human race.
Absolute freedom of the press to discuss public questions is a foundation stone of American liberty.
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