Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that even those who take life and death lightly have serious matters that warrant respect.
Edgar Allan Poe's quote reflects on the nature of seriousness in life, highlighting that, despite the humorous or lighthearted attitudes some may adopt towards life's most profound aspects, there are certain matters—often of deep moral or ethical significance—that require reverence and cannot be treated as mere jokes. It underscores a philosophical perspective on life's gravity that transcends the frivolity some may choose to embody.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion about the meaning of life and death, this quote can emphasize the importance of recognizing serious issues.
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 very definition of the real becomes: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction. The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced. The hyper real.
No man should be alone when he opposes Satan. The Church and the ministry of the Word were instituted for this purpose, that hands may be joined together and one may help another.
The pleasantest things in the world are pleasant thoughts, and the great art of life is to have as many of them as possible.
To see the other side, to defend another people, not despite your tradition but because of it, is the heart of pluralism
People who have a sense of peace that their priorities are in the right place also have a sense of humility and a realistic view on life.
A thought that sometimes makes me hazy: Am I - or are the others crazy?
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