And from that time on I bathed in the Poem Of the Sea, star-infused and churned into milk, Devouring the green azures; where, entranced in pallid flotsam, A dreaming drowned man sometimes goes down.
Arthur RimbaudRead
I found I could extinguish all human hope from my soul.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a deep sense of despair and the loss of optimism in life.
In this quote, Arthur Rimbaud expresses the profound sense of emptiness and hopelessness that can inhabit the human soul. It suggests a dramatic internal struggle where one feels capable of removing all hope, which can be interpreted as a critique of existential despair and the endless cycle of searching for meaning in a chaotic world.
Themes
DespairHopeSoulExistentialismMeaning
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used to enhance a discussion on the theme of existentialism in literature.
More from Arthur Rimbaud
All quotes →My wisdom is as spurned as chaos. What is my nothingness, compared to the amazement that awaits you?
Arthur RimbaudRead
In the great glasshouses streaming with condensation, the children in mourning-dress beheld marvels.
Arthur RimbaudRead
I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.
Arthur RimbaudRead
Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life.
Arthur RimbaudRead
What a life! True life is elsewhere. We are not in the world.
Arthur RimbaudRead
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For the world is an ever-elusive and ever-disappointing mirage only from the standpoint of someone standing aside from it—as if it were quite other than himself—and then trying to grasp it. But a third response is possible. Not withdrawal, not stewardship on the hypothesis of a future reward, but the fullest collaboration with the world as a harmonious system of contained conflicts—based on the realization that the only real "I" is the whole endless process.
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Being a unique superpower undermines the military intelligence of strategy. To think strategically, one has to imagine oneself in the enemy's place. If one cannot do this, it is impossible to foresee, to take by surprise, to outflank. Misinterpreting an enemy can lead to defeat. This is how empires fall.
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