Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that life is a temporary state of forgetting the divine or beautiful origins of our existence, yet we retain glimpses of this glory.
William Wordsworth's quote reflects on the nature of human existence, describing birth as a moment when we forget our celestial origins. Though we start life in a state of forgetfulness, we carry with us memories, or 'trailing clouds of glory,' that remind us of our connection to something greater. This perspective invites contemplation on the nature of consciousness, memory, and the spiritual aspects of our lives.
In practice
During a graduation speech, to inspire students about their potential and origins.
For mightier far_x000D_ _x000D_ Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway_x000D_ _x000D_ Of magic potent over sun and star,_x000D_ _x000D_ Is love, though oft to agony distrest,_x000D_ _x000D_ And though his favourite be feeble woman's breast.
By all means sometimes be alone; salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear; dare to look in thy chest; and tumble up and down what thou findest there.
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,_x000D_ _x000D_ The earth, and every common sight,_x000D_ _x000D_ To me did seem_x000D_ _x000D_ Apparelled in celestial light,_x000D_ _x000D_ The glory and the freshness of a dream.
Books are yours, Within whose silent chambers treasure lies Preserved from age to age; more precious far Than that accumulated store of gold And orient gems, which, for a day of need, The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs. These hoards of truth you can unlock at will.
The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune.
Shalt show us how divine a thing A woman may be made.
Only in the last moment in history has the delusion arisen that people can flourish apart from the rest of the living world.
There is nothing divine about morality; it is a purely human affair. If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. What the individual can do is to give a fine example, and to have the courage to uphold ethical values .. in a society of cynics.
I always say that my favorite people to interview are the people who are at the beginning and the ends of their lives because they have two alternate perspectives of the world, and neither of them are less profound.
Every new baby is a blind desperate vote for survival: people who find themselves unable to register an effective political protest against extermination do so by a biological act.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Only those persons who have lived, really lived, are ready, welcoming, receptive, thankful to death. Then death is not the enemy. Then death becomes the fulfillment.
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