Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change.
H. G. WellsRead
I want to go ahead of Father Time with a scythe of my own.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses a desire to take control of one's own destiny and challenge the passage of time.
H. G. Wells's quote metaphorically speaks to the human urge to defy the inevitability of aging and the progression of time. By wishing to possess a 'scythe of my own', the speaker indicates a longing for autonomy over life’s fleeting moments, reflecting both an awareness of time’s relentless march and a wish to assert personal agency in shaping one's fate.
Themes
TimeDestinyControlAgencyMortality
In practice
Example use cases
During a graduation speech to encourage students to seize their future.
More from H. G. Wells
All quotes →He spares no resource in telling of his dead inventions... Bare verbs he rarely tolerates. He splits infinitives and fills them up with adverbial stuffing. He presses the passing colloquialism into his service. His vast paragraphis sweat and struggle; the
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It [a new world order] needs only that the governments of Britain, the United States, France, Germany, and Russia should get together in order to set up an effective control of currency, credit, production, and distribution – that is to say, an effective ‘dictatorship of prosperity,’ for the whole world. The other sixty odd States would have to join in or accommodate themselves to the over-ruling decisions of these major Powers.
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Things that would have made fame of a less clever man seemed tricks in his hands. It is a mistake to do things too easily.
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But I was too restless to watch long; I'm too Occidental for a long vigil. I could work at a problem for years, but to wait inactive for twenty-four hours - that's another matter.
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The greatest task of democracy, its ritual and feast - is choice.
H. G. WellsRead
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