Even for those to whom life and death are equal jests. There are some things that are still held in respect.
Interpretation
Life and death are not serious to some, yet certain matters still command respect.
In this quote, Edgar Allan Poe reflects on the perspective that some individuals view life and death as trivial, yet he emphasizes that there are still aspects of existence that should be treated with dignity and reverence. This highlights the duality of human experience, acknowledging that while some may adopt a light-hearted approach to such profound themes, there are still fundamental truths and values that deserve respect.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a discussion about the different attitudes people have towards life and death during a philosophy class.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
The gods conceal from men the happiness of death, that they may endure life.
A conservative young man has wound up his life before it was unreeled. We expect old men to be conservative but when a nation's young men are so, its funeral bell is already rung.
I almost do not exist now and I know it; God knows what lives in me in place of me.
There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation, than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country.
Every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact (casus non faederis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits. Without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them.
Human life is something that comes to us from beyond this world, and the purpose of our society is to cherish it and to enable the individual to attain the highest achievement of which he is capable
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