Forests were the first temples of the Divinity, and it is in the forests that men have grasped the first idea of architecture.
Franois-Ren De ChateaubriandRead
Every man carries within himself a world made up of all that he has seen and loved; and it is to this world that he returns, incessantly, though he may pass through and seem to inhabit a world quite foreign to it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Each person's inner world is shaped by their experiences and affections, influencing how they perceive the external world.
This quote by François-René de Chateaubriand emphasizes the idea that every individual carries a unique internal landscape formed by their memories, emotions, and experiences. Despite interacting with the external world, the essence of who they are and what they cherish remains rooted in this personal world, suggesting that our perceptions and interactions are deeply influenced by our inner selves, often leading us to seek a return to that place of familiarity and love.
Themes
Inner WorldExperiencePerceptionMemoriesIdentity
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech on personal growth, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of understanding our inner selves.
More from Franois-Ren De Chateaubriand
All quotes →The original writer is not he who refrains from imitating others, but he who can be imitated by none.
Franois-Ren De ChateaubriandRead
A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes; the leaves falling like our years, the flowers fading like our hours, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives--all bear secret relations to our destinies.
Franois-Ren De ChateaubriandRead
A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which.
Franois-Ren De ChateaubriandRead
Similar quotes
Adding to your list of enemies is never a sound strategy, yet ISIS' ferocious campaign against the Shia, Kurds, Yazidis, Christians, and Muslims who don't precisely share its views has united every ethnic and religious group in Syria and Iraq against them.
Peter BergenRead
As a southerner born after the epic events of the civil rights movement, I've always wondered how on earth people of good will could have conceivably lived with Jim Crow - with the daily degradations, the lynchings in plain sight, and, as the movement gathered force, with the fire hoses and the police dogs and the billy clubs.
Jon MeachamRead
Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.
Edward GibbonRead
Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.
Frederick DouglassRead
In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth - often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.
HypatiaRead
There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature, and which therefore is done every day, but would seem a Miracle, and exercise our admiration, if it were done but once.
John DonneRead