After all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can't trust a person.
It is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the idealized visions of paradise presented by various beliefs, suggesting they are often impractical for refined individuals.
Evelyn Waugh's quote reflects on the ironic nature of religious or ideological promises of paradise, highlighting a disconnect between these utopian visions and the reality of human desires and cultural sophistication. He suggests that what is often presented as an ideal state is, in fact, not livable for those with civilized sensibilities, provoking thought about the validity of such promises in the context of human experience.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote during a debate on the merits of different belief systems in a philosophy class.
More from Evelyn Waugh
All quotes βThere are no poetic ideas; only poetic utterances.
Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
...she had regained what I thought she had lost forever, the magical sadness which had drawn me to her, the thwarted look that had seemed to say, "Surely I was made for some other purpose than this?
That was the change in her from ten years ago; that, indeed, was her reward, this haunting, magical sadness which spoke straight to the heart and struck silence; it was the completion of her beauty.
That's the public-school system all over. They may kick you out, but they never let you down.
Similar quotes
I am lost if I attempt to take count of chronology. When I think over the past, I am like a person whose eyes cannot properly measure distances and is liable to think things extremely remote which on examination prove to be quite near.
Thought can be so seductive and hypnotic that it absorbs your attention totally, so you become your thoughts.
What people see on court is another side of me; it's not me.
The layman always means, when he says "reality" that he is speaking of something self-evidently known; whereas to me it seems the most important and exceedingly difficult task of our time is to work on the construction of a new idea of reality.
I think it is wrong to expect certainties in this world, where all else but God that is Truth is an uncertainty. All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain, transient. But there is a Supreme Being hidden therein as a Certainty, and one would be blessed if one could catch a glimpse of that Certainty and hitch one's waggon to it. The quest for that Truth is the summum bonum of life.
Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us- by that God we both adore- Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore- Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore.