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A Humorous, Yet Valid, View of Our World by Cabell
Description
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true." — James Branch Cabell
This episode looks at a line of dialogue from James Branch Cabell's 1926 novel "The Silver Stallion," a sly response to philosopher Gottfried Leibniz's idea that this is the best of all possible worlds, and to Voltaire's famous satire of that idea in "Candide." I unpack why the optimist and pessimist in this quote are actually agreeing on the facts and disagreeing only on the feeling attached to them, connect it to a line from the film "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" about why humans invented hope, and close with an honest counterpoint: not every optimistic or pessimistic read on a situation is pure temperament, and sometimes one side is simply right. A clever piece of satire that says more about human temperament than it does about the world.
At The Quotive Corner, remember that wisdom isn’t in the quote. It’s in the reflection. New episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!
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