Once you have been in an earthquake you know, even if you survive without a scratch, that like a stroke in the heart, it remains in the earth's breast, horribly potential, always promising to return, to hit you again, with an even more devastating force.
Interpretation
Surviving an earthquake leaves a lasting impression of its potential dangers, reminiscent of deep-seated fears.
This quote by Salman Rushdie captures the profound psychological impact that experiencing an earthquake can have on a person's consciousness. Even if one escapes physically unharmed, the fear and anxiety about the unpredictable power of nature linger on, suggesting that such an experience changes one’s perception of safety and vulnerability in the world around them. The metaphor of the earth 'breast' holding a 'stroke in the heart' implies a deep connection between humanity and nature's potential for destruction, reminding us that the threat may always exist beneath the surface, ready to resurface with possibly greater intensity.
In practice
In a lecture about natural disasters, one could use this quote to emphasize the psychological effects of surviving disasters.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
Perhaps walking is best imagined as an 'indicator species,' to use an ecologist's term. An indicator species signifies the health of an ecosystem, and its endangerment or diminishment can be an early warning sign of systemic trouble. Walking is an indicator species for various kinds of freedom and pleasures: free time, free and alluring space, and unhindered bodies.
Nature is our eldest mother; she will do no harm.
We're a part of nature. As we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves. It's a selfish thing to want to protect nature.
I think, on a personal level, everybody, when you go through the checkout line after you get your groceries and they say, 'Paper or plastic?' We should be saying, 'Neither one.' We should have our own cloth bags.
When I first ventured into the Gulf of Mexico in the 1950s, the sea appeared to be a blue infinity too large, too wild to be harmed by anything that people could do.
Her concern with landscapes and living creatures was passionate. This concern, feebly called, "the love of nature" seemed to Shevek to be something much broader than love. There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand death as an enemy; they look forward to rotting and turning into humus. It was strange to see Takver take a leaf into her hand, or even a rock. She became an extension of it, it of her.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.