I tell you that man has no more tormenting care than to find someone to whom he can hand over as quickly as possible that gift of freedom with which the miserable creature is born. But he alone can take over the freedom of men who appeases their conscience. With bread you were given an indisputable banner: give man bread and he will bow down to you, for there is nothing more indisputable than bread. But if at the same time someone else takes over his conscience - oh, then he will even throw down your bread and follow him who has seduced his conscience. In this you were right. For the mystery of man's being is not only in living, but in what one lives for. Without a firm idea of what he lives for, man will not consent to live and will sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if there is bread all around him. That is so, but what came of it? Instead of taking over men's freedom, you increased it still more for them! Did you forget that peace and even death are dearer to man than free choice in the knowledge of good and evil? There is nothing more seductive for man than the freedom of his conscience, but there is nothing more tormenting either. And so, instead of a firm foundation for appeasing human conscience once and for all, you chose everything that was unusual, enigmatic, and indefinite, you chose everything that was beyond men's strength, and thereby acted as if you did not love them at all - and who did this? He who came to give his life for them! Instead of taking over men's freedom, you increased it and forever burdened the kingdom of the human soul with its torments. You desired the free love of man, that he should follow you freely. seduced and captivated by you. Instead of the firm ancient law, men had henceforth to decide for himself, with a free heart, what is good and what is evil, having only your image before him as a guide - but did it not occur to you that he would eventually reject and dispute even your image and your truth if he was oppressed by so terrible a burden as freedom of choice? They will finally cry out that the truth is not in you, for it was impossible to leave them in greater confusion and torment than you did, abandoning them to so many cares and insoluble problems. Thus you yourself laid the foundation for the destruction of your own kingdom, and do not blame anyone else for it.
Fyodor DostoevskyTags: free-will morality human-nature christ
He seemed like a walking blasphemy, a blend of the angel and the ape.
G.K. ChestertonTags: human-nature
It is easier for a man to burn down his own house than to get rid of his prejudices.
Roger BaconTags: man house human-nature human prejudices burn easier
By “the Permanent Things” [T. S. Eliot] meant those elements in the human condition that give us our nature, without which we are as the beasts that perish. They work upon us all in the sense that both they and we are bound up in that continuity of belief and institution called the great mysterious incorporation of the human race.
Russell KirkTags: human-nature culture permanent-things
We all know the true nature of the human soul, because we have all looked into the eyes of children, and saw ourselves looking back.
Bryant McGillTags: humanity human-nature humankind
Grant had dealt too long with the human intelligence to accept as truth someone's report of someone's report of what that someone remembered to have seen or been told.
Josephine TeyTags: human-nature
পৃথিবীতে ২ ধরনের মানুষে আছে।
এক ধরনের মানুষ রাগ প্রকাশ করতে পারে,
খুশি প্রকাশ করতে পারে না, আরেক ধরনের
মানুষ খুশি প্রকাশ করতে পারে,
রাগ প্রকাশ করতে পারে না
Tags: human-nature
I recalled my father-in-law's aphorism "To fool a judge, feign fascination, but to bamboozle the whole court, feign boredom..."
David MitchellTags: advice human-nature
Judith Rey watches the young woman. Once upon a time, I had a baby daughter. I dressed her in frilly frocks, enrolled her for ballet classes, and sent her to horse-riding camp five summers in a row. But look at her. She turned into Lester anyway. She kisses Luisa’s forehead. Luisa frowns, suspiciously, like a teenager. “What?
David MitchellTags: growing-up parents identity children human-nature mother father daughter roles
Licht holt uit. Een mens zit ook zo vol gaten. Een mens zou geslotener moeten zijn. Op den duur kan men niets meer binnenhouden.
J. BernlefTags: inspirational human-nature
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