For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that our adult selves carry the essence of our childhood, and our childhood selves hold the potential of our future adult selves.
John Connollyβs quote reflects the duality of human nature, emphasizing that every adult retains the innocence and wonder of their childhood, while within each child is the potential for the maturity and wisdom of adulthood. It speaks to the continuity of human development, where experiences from youth shape the adult identity, and the dreams and aspirations from childhood can guide the adult's path.
In practice
This quote can be used in a presentation about personal growth and development.
Without a human voice to read them aloud, or a pair of wide eyes following them by flashlight beneath a blanket, they had no real existence in our world. They were like seeds in the beak of a bird, waiting to fall to earth, or the notes of a song laid out on a sheet, yearning for an instrument to bring their music into being.
It was an overcast late November morning, the grass splintered by hoarfrost, and winter grinning through the gaps in the clouds like a bad clown peering through the curtains before the show begins.
We all have our routines," he said softly."But they must have a purpose and provide an outcome that we can see and take some comfort from, or else they have no use at all. Without that, they are like the endless pacings of a caged animal. If they are not madness itself, then they are a prelude to it.
He would talk to them of stories and books, and explain to them how stories wanted to be told and books wanted to be read, and how everything that they ever needed to know about life and the land of which he wrote, or about any land or realm that they could imagine, was contained in books. And some of the children understood, and some did not.
Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.
I've been called a recluse. There's definitely truth in that. I like to spend time alone.
If God is not sovereign, God is not God.
It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History.
Let me have men about me that are fat... Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
If the end of the twentieth century can be characterized by futurism, the twenty-first can be defined by presentism.
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