
“We do not free ourselves from something by avoiding it, but only by living though it.”
This Business of Living (1935-1950)
Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1979).
Context: Do we find ourselves a species naturally free from conflict? We do not. There has not, apparently, been in our evolution a kind of rationalization which might seem a possible solution to problems of conflict--namely, a takeover by some major motive, such as the desire for future pleasure, which would automatically rule out all competing desires. Instead, what has developed is our intelligence. And this in some ways makes matters worse, since it shows us many desirable things that we would not otherwise have thought of, as well as the quite sufficient number we knew about for a start. In compensation, however, it does help us to arbitrate. Rules and principles, standards and ideals emerge as part of a priority system by which we guide ourselves through the jungle. They never make the job easy--desires that we put low on our priority system do not merely vanish--but they make it possible. And it is in working out these concepts more fully, in trying to extend their usefulness, that moral philosophy begins. Were there no conflict, it [moral philosophy] could never have arisen.
“We do not free ourselves from something by avoiding it, but only by living though it.”
This Business of Living (1935-1950)
Variant: Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone we find it with another.
Source: Love and Living
“This is what we do, my mother's life said. We find ourselves in the sacrifices we make.”
Source: Neighborhood Watch
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 238
Source: “Humanly, left to ourselves, we are incapable of doing a divine work”: DR Congo Prelate https://www.aciafrica.org/news/871/humanly-left-to-ourselves-we-are-incapable-of-doing-a-divine-work-dr-congo-prelate (26 February 2020)