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About this quote

What does it mean?
People sometimes take pleasure in the suffering of others.
In plain terms
We often feel happy when bad things happen to other people.
What can you take from it?
Recognize the human tendency to enjoy others' misfortune.

Where it applies

  • social media
  • rivalry
  • personal conflict

Putting it to work

  • monitor reactions to rivals
  • cultivate empathy
  • avoid gossip

Questions to consider

  • Why do we enjoy seeing others fail?
  • How can you resist this feeling?

Another view

It generalizes a complex emotion into a universal trait.

More from Edmund Burke

  1. No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

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  2. A great profusion of things, which are splendid or valuable in themselves, is magnificent. The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, …

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  3. Custom reconciles us to every thing.

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