I asked her to look at me and after a few moments - (pause) - after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. (Pause. Low) Let me in.
Samuel BeckettRead
Decidedly it will never have been given to me to finish anything, except perhaps breathing. One must not be greedy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the struggle with completion and acceptance of one's limitations.
In this quote, Samuel Beckett expresses a sense of resignation regarding the inability to complete tasks or projects, suggesting that the only certainty in life is the act of breathing. He implies that striving for perfection or completion can lead to greed and frustration, and perhaps it is more important to accept the inherent incompleteness in life and focus on the simple acts of existence.
Themes
CompletionResignationLimitationsAcceptanceExistence
In practice
Example use cases
During a philosophical discussion about the nature of life and work, this quote can highlight the acceptance of incompleteness.
More from Samuel Beckett
All quotes βNothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful.
Samuel BeckettRead
I shall state silences more competently than ever a better man spangled the butterflies of vertigo.
Samuel BeckettRead
And what I have, what I am, is enough, was always enough for me, and as far as my dear little sweet little future is concerned I have no qualms, I have a good time coming.
Samuel BeckettRead
I love order. It's my dream. A world where all would be silent and still, and each thing in its last place, under the last dust.
Samuel BeckettRead
We lose our hair, our teeth! Our bloom, our ideals.
Samuel BeckettRead
Similar quotes
It is a debt we owe to the purity of our religion to show that it is at variance with that law which warrants slavery.
Patrick HenryRead
To get a man soundly saved it is not enough to put on him a pair of new breeches, to give him regular work, or even to give him a University education. These things are all outside a man, and if the inside remains unchanged you have wasted your labor. You must in some way or other graft upon the man's nature a new nature, which has in it the element of the Divine.
William BoothRead
It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self-conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations of the earth are in a conspiracy to under value them.
Henry JamesRead
Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd.
Pope Benedict XviRead
Pope had been flattered till he thought himself one of the moving powers of the system of life. When he talked of laying down his pen, those who sat round him intreated and implored; and self-love did not suffer him to suspect that they went away and laughed.
Samuel JohnsonRead
The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.
Stanley MilgramRead