“You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.”
Source: Gilead
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Marilynne Robinson51
American novelist and essayist 1943Related quotes
Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso
Alcun non può saper da chi sia amato,
Quando felice in su la ruota siede:
Però c'ha i veri e i finti amici a lato,
Che mostran tutti una medesma fede.
Se poi si cangia in tristo il lieto stato,
Volta la turba adulatrice il piede;
E quel che di cor ama riman forte,
Ed ama il suo signor dopo la morte.
Canto XIX, stanza 1 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
Aravind Adiga book The White Tiger
The Second Night.
The White Tiger (2008)
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
The Analects, Chapter I, Chapter IV
“A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them.”
Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman
Source: Go Set a Watchman
Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher
Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.435
Anna Comnena book Alexiad
Of Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemund
The Alexiad, Book 1
Jorge Luis Borges book The Immortal
"The Immortal", § IV, in The Aleph (1949); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
Variant: To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal.
George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American politician, 41st President of the United States
At a memorial in Norfolk Virginia for the 47 crew members killed in an explosion aboard the battleship USS Iowa (BB-61). - "Bush Fights Tears at Memorial", By Susan Page. Newsday Washington Bureau. Newsday. Long Island, N.Y.: April 25, 1989. pg. 04
Context: To all who mourn a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a friend — I can only offer you the gratitude of a nation, for your loved one served his country with distinction and honor." … "Your men are under a different command now, one that knows no rank, only love; knows no danger, only peace, May God bless them all.
“The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”
John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach
Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court