“People can never know the heart of another”
The Power of the Dog (Thomas Savage Edition)People can never know the heart of another is the central thought in Johnny Gordon’s advice to Peter: other people’s judgments cannot reveal a person’s inner life, but refusing those judgments is not the same as refusing kindness. The exchange makes the expression less a simple maxim of self-reliance than a warning about the responsibility that comes with strength.
Meaning and Context
Johnny introduces the advice during a rare, intimate conversation with Peter. After telling his son that he loves him, he says he has one thing to tell him: not to mind what people say, because people can never know another person’s heart. The counsel links social judgment to the limits of understanding. Others may speak about Peter, but their words cannot amount to full knowledge of who he is.
The thought also emerges from Johnny’s difficulty speaking openly. He reflects that his own father may have found it hard to speak, and that this may explain why he never did. His declaration of love and his advice are therefore part of the same effort: to say plainly what he means, and to pass on something he wishes Peter to carry forward.
Peter’s Response
Peter first admits that he is not sure what his father is about to tell him. Once Johnny gives the advice, Peter answers with an emphatic promise that he will never mind what people say. The speed and certainty of the reply seem to accept the maxim as a rule without yet showing that he understands its qualification.
Johnny immediately corrects the manner of Peter’s response. He warns that many people who claim not to mind what others say grow hard. The exchange thus distinguishes resilience from callousness: the advice is not an invitation to disregard other people altogether, but to resist their judgments without letting resistance become a license to hurt them.
Kindness and Strength
Johnny makes the limit explicit by urging Peter to be kind. He believes the man Peter may become could hurt people terribly because he is strong, and asks whether Peter understands kindness. Peter remains uncertain. That uncertainty leaves the advice unresolved: he has accepted its first half, but the conversation does not establish that he has grasped the ethical burden Johnny attaches to it.
The expression’s force lies in this tension. It protects Peter from treating other people’s opinions as definitive knowledge, while Johnny’s warning about hardness prevents that protection from becoming indifference. The counsel ends not with confidence that Peter understands, but with a question of character that remains open.
