Adventures come to the adventurous, and mysterious things fall in the way of those who, with wonder and imagination, are on the watch for them; but the majority of people go past the doors that are half ajar, thinking them closed, and fail to notice the faint stirrings of the great curtain that hangs ever in the form of appearances between them and the world of causes behind.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that those who embrace curiosity and imagination are more likely to encounter life's adventures and mysteries, while others miss opportunities due to complacency.
Algernon Blackwood suggests that life offers many adventures and mysterious experiences to those who actively seek them out with a sense of wonder and an imaginative mindset. In contrast, most people overlook these opportunities because they are blinded by their assumptions and fail to recognize the possibilities that exist in their surroundings. By being open and attentive, one can discover the richness of life that lies beyond the surface.
In practice
Use this quote in a speech about embracing creativity and innovation in the workplace.
When common objects in this way be come charged with the suggestion of horror, they stimulate the imagination far more than things of unusual appearance; and these bushes, crowding huddled about us, assumed for me in the darkness a bizarre grotesquerie of appearance that lent to them somehow the aspect of purposeful and living creatures. Their very ordinariness, I felt, masked what was malignant and hostile to us.
If no one remembers a misdeed or names it publically, it remains invisible. To the observer, its victim is not a victim and its perpetrator is not a perpetrator; both are misperceived because the suffering of the one and the violence of the other go unseen. A double injustice occurs-the first when the original deed is done and the second when it disappears.
Pollution is everywhere, in that ancient Greek sense of miasma: guilt experienced as abject body fluid, moral pollution defining what kinds of beings count in social space.
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. A handsome woman talks nonsense, you listen and hear not nonsense but cleverness. She says and does horrid things, and you see only charm. And if a handsome woman does not say stupid or horrid things, you at once persuade yourself that she is wonderfully clever and moral.
In our culture, snails are not considered valiant animals - we are constantly exhorting people to "come out of their shells" - but there's a lot to be said for taking your home with you wherever you go.
What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.
No lying knight or lying priest ever prospered in any age, but especially not in the dark ones. Men prospered then only in following an openly declared purpose, and preaching candidly beloved and trusted creeds.
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