It required all his delicate Epicurean education to prevent his doing something about it; he had to repeat over to himself his favorite notions: that the injustice and unhappiness in the world is a constant; that the theory of progress is a delusion; that the poor, never having known happiness, are insensible to misfortune. Like all the rich he could not bring himself to believe that the poor (look at their houses, look at their clothes) could really suffer. Like all the cultivated he believed that only the widely read could be said to know that they were unhappy. Thornton Wilder
About This Quote

Dr. Johnson in his essay “The Vanity of Human Wishes” talks about the poor and their inability to recognize their own suffering. He is talking about the people in his life who were too well off and too educated to understand how they were hurting others. He was discussing the fact that people in high class society never suffer or feel the pain of others than themselves. People in high class society believe that they are better than others and therefore cannot understand why anyone would be unhappy.

Source: The Bridge Of San Luis Rey

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