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.
It is futile to try to make the universe add up. But I guess we must go on anyhow.
As it turns out, we don't "all" have to pay our debts. Only some of us do.
To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.' Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.
As a well cut diamond has many facets, each reflecting a different color of light, so does the word yoga, each facet reflecting a different shade of meaning and revealing different aspects of the entire range of human endeavor to win inner peace and happiness.
To hell with the future. It's a man-eating idol.
The problem of the Middle East is poverty more than politics.
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