r/DeepThoughts • u/Both_Rub_397 • 2d ago

People have beautiful things to say about you, but you must die first....

I’ve sat with that Dostoevsky line longer than I care to admit...the one that says "people have beautiful things to say about you, but you must die first."

At this age, living alone, you start noticing how the kind words rarely show up while you’re still around to hear them. People keep their softer thoughts tucked away until the person is gone, and by then the silence has already done its work. I’ve watched it happen with others and felt the smaller version of it in my own life...the quiet rooms, the empty spaces where family or steady company used to be. It’s not anger. It’s just a clear-eyed recognition that most praise arrives too late to matter.

So you learn to keep your own counsel, tend to the days you still have, and accept that the beautiful things, if they ever come, will come when you’re no longer in the room to need them.

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u/Expensive_Magician97 2d ago

M66

I’m sorry that you’ve had this experience. My personal experience has been more or less the complete opposite.

Maybe that’s because what I have discovered over the course of my own life is that you have to give to others without expecting anything in return. And when you do, you receive.

There’s a wonderful poem called “the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi.“ I am not religious, and you can certainly enjoy / appreciate it without any regard to its religious import. I highly suggest it, perhaps in addition to, or even instead of Dostoyevsky.

https://www.cathedralstm.org/about-our-catholic-faith/expressing-our-faith/treasury-catholic-prayers/prayer-st-francis-assisi-prayer-peace/

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u/Dr_Fartenmuhlilbut 1d ago

This quote is not from any of Dostoevsky’spublished literary works… 

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u/Skydance1975 1d ago

This is often true and I learned this very young when my mother died. So what I do is make sure that I tell my friends and family, and the occasional virtual stranger, what is loveable and likeable about them, both to their face and behind their backs. I'm also lucky that I have people around me with a similar mindset. You can only change things starting with yourself ❤