"Logic is one thing, the human animal another. You can quite easily propose a logical solution to something and at the same time hope in your heart of hearts it won't work out"
About this Quote
Pirandello pins a quiet cruelty to the wall: the mind can draft a clean, sensible exit while the body - that twitchy, status-seeking, fear-soaked “human animal” - prays for sabotage. It’s a line that lands because it refuses the comforting myth that reason is our true self and emotion the mere interference. For Pirandello, the interference is the point.
The phrasing sets up a courtroom contrast. “Logic” sounds like a brief, an argument you can “propose.” Then comes the demotion: not “the human being,” but “the human animal,” a reminder that beneath our rhetoric we’re driven by appetite, shame, loyalty, pride. The sting is in “quite easily”: the rational solution isn’t hard to find. What’s hard is wanting it. The heart’s “hope... it won’t work out” exposes an inner double agent - we can advocate for the best outcome while secretly clinging to the old mess because it’s familiar, because it protects someone, because it preserves our preferred story about ourselves.
This is Pirandello’s theatrical DNA. His plays obsess over divided selves, social masks, and the gap between the role we perform and the truth we can barely admit to ourselves. The quote reads like dialogue from a character who has just watched a neat plan collapse and felt, to their horror, a flicker of relief. Subtext: self-sabotage isn’t always irrational. Sometimes it’s loyalty to an identity we can’t afford to lose, even when it’s hurting us.
The phrasing sets up a courtroom contrast. “Logic” sounds like a brief, an argument you can “propose.” Then comes the demotion: not “the human being,” but “the human animal,” a reminder that beneath our rhetoric we’re driven by appetite, shame, loyalty, pride. The sting is in “quite easily”: the rational solution isn’t hard to find. What’s hard is wanting it. The heart’s “hope... it won’t work out” exposes an inner double agent - we can advocate for the best outcome while secretly clinging to the old mess because it’s familiar, because it protects someone, because it preserves our preferred story about ourselves.
This is Pirandello’s theatrical DNA. His plays obsess over divided selves, social masks, and the gap between the role we perform and the truth we can barely admit to ourselves. The quote reads like dialogue from a character who has just watched a neat plan collapse and felt, to their horror, a flicker of relief. Subtext: self-sabotage isn’t always irrational. Sometimes it’s loyalty to an identity we can’t afford to lose, even when it’s hurting us.
Quote Details
| Topic | Reason & Logic |
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