The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive.
Anais NinRead
Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the value of introspection over societal pressures to conform to extroverted ideals.
Anais Nin's quote emphasizes the importance of the inner journey and self-discovery in a culture that prioritizes extroverted behaviors and values. By discouraging this inward exploration, society has led individuals to lose their sense of self or 'center,' which they must now strive to rediscover in order to achieve true fulfillment and understanding.
Themes
CultureIntrospectionSelf-DiscoveryExtroversionInner Journey
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on mental health, one might use this quote to advocate for the importance of self-reflection.
More from Anais Nin
All quotes →Anxiety is love's greatest killer, because it is like the stranglehold of the drowning.
Anais NinRead
We celebrate peace. Yet we pay no attention to the ways of curing aggression in human beings. And when one sees in psychoanalysis hostility disappearing as people conquer their fears, one wonders if the cure is not there.
Anais NinRead
The impetus to grow and live intensely is so powerful in me I cannot resist it. I will work, I will love my husband, but I will fulfill myself.
Anais NinRead
We have been poisoned by fairy tales.
Anais NinRead
But I lie. I embellish. My words are not deep enough. They disguise, they conceal. I will not rest until I have told of my descent into a sensuality which was as dark, as magnificent, as wild, as my moments of mystic creation have been dazzling, ecstatic, exalted.
Anais NinRead
Similar quotes
Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds.
Teresa Of AvilaRead
I soon came to understand that drink, tobacco and prostitutes were all great means if dissipating (even for a few moments) my dread for human beings. I came even to feel that if I had to sell every last possession to obtain these means of escape, it would be well worth it.
Osamu DazaiRead
The entire most beautiful order of things that are very good, when their measures have been accomplished, is to pass away.
Saint AugustineRead
Neurosis is the result of a conflict between the ego and its id, whereas psychosis is the analogous outcome of a similar disturbance in the relation between the ego and the external world.
Sigmund FreudRead
A lot of people have found the idea of living your life over and over again absolutely terrifying; there's some people that find it very comforting. There are others that are appalled by it.
Alan MooreRead
The very lack of evidence is thus treated as evidence; the absence of smoke proves that the fire is very carefully hidden...A belief in invisible cats cannot be logically disproved although it does tell us a good deal about those who hold it.
C. S. LewisRead