I dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what we no longer can.
Jack GilbertRead
Being alive is so extraordinary I don’t know why people limit it to riches, pride, security—all of those things life is built on. People miss so much because they want money and comfort and pride, a house and a job to pay for the house. And they have to get a car. You can’t see anything from a car. It’s moving too fast. People take vacations. That’s their reward—the vacation. Why not the life?
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life's richness extends beyond material wealth, and many miss the beauty of everyday existence.
In this quote, Jack Gilbert emphasizes the extraordinary nature of life itself, arguing that people often confine their experiences and joys to material possessions and societal achievements. He suggests that the quest for money, comfort, and status distracts individuals from truly living and appreciating the world around them. By prioritizing tangible rewards over the experience of life, they overlook the profound richness and beauty that life offers in its most simple forms.
Themes
LifeExperienceWealthBeautyMindfulness
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about living fully, you might say, 'As Jack Gilbert noted, being alive is extraordinary—let's not limit that experience to our possessions.'
More from Jack Gilbert
All quotes →But anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Like being there by that summer ocean on the other side of the island while love was fading out of her, the stars burning so extravagantly those nights that anyone could tell you they would never last.
Jack GilbertRead
Are the angels of her bed the angels who come near me alone in mine? Are the green trees in her window the color is see in ripe plums? If she always sees backward and upside down without knowing it what chance do we have? I am haunted by the feeling that she is saying melting lords of death, avalanches, rivers and moments of passing through, And I am replying, "Yes, yes. Shoes and pudding.
Jack GilbertRead
We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.
Jack GilbertRead
I like ornament at the right time, but I don't want a poem to be made out of decoration ... When I read the poems that matter to me, it stuns me how much the presence of the heart-in all its forms-is endlessly available there. To experience ourselves in an important way just knocks me out. It puzzles me why people have given that up for cleverness. Some of them are ingenious, more ingenious than I am, but so many of them aren't any good at being alive.
Jack GilbertRead
WAKING AT NIGHT The blue river is grey at morning and evening. There is twilight at dawn and dusk. I lie in the dark wondering if this quiet in me now is a beginning or an end.
Jack GilbertRead
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