Haven (1951)
“If we resist our passions, it is more through their weakness than our strength.”
Si nous résistons à nos passions, c'est plus par leur faiblesse que par notre force.
If we conquer our passions, it is more from their weakness than from our strength.
Maxim 122.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“More often than not, anger is actually an indication of weakness rather than of strength.”
From books
Source: Jean Vanier, Community And Growth, 1979
“Our strength is often composed of the weakness that we're damned if we're going to show.”
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified
“We love our habits more than our income, often more than our life.”
Source: Sceptical Essays
Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015
“How exactly is diversity our strength?”
[How white supremacy went mainstream in the US: 8chan, Trump, voter suppression, Luke, Darby, August 11, 2019, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/11/el-paso-shooting-white-supremacy-8chan-voter-suppression]
2010s, 2019
Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), IV
Context: Well, granted that it was only a dream, yet the sensation of the love of those innocent and beautiful people has remained with me for ever, and I feel as though their love is still flowing out to me from over there. I have seen them myself, have known them and been convinced; I loved them, I suffered for them afterwards. Oh, I understood at once even at the time that in many things I could not understand them at all … But I soon realised that their knowledge was gained and fostered by intuitions different from those of us on earth, and that their aspirations, too, were quite different. They desired nothing and were at peace; they did not aspire to knowledge of life as we aspire to understand it, because their lives were full. But their knowledge was higher and deeper than ours; for our science seeks to explain what life is, aspires to understand it in order to teach others how to love, while they without science knew how to live; and that I understood, but I could not understand their knowledge.
