Solitude lies at the lowest depth of the human condition. Man is the only being who feels himself to be alone and the only one who is searching for the Other.
Octavio PazRead
Fixity is always momentary. But how can it always be so? If it were, it would not be momentary - or would not be fixity.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the paradox of fixity and change, suggesting that what seems stable is actually transient.
Octavio Paz is exploring the concept of fixity, arguing that if something is always fixed, it contradicts the very nature of being momentary. This paradox invites us to contemplate the fluidity of existence, where what we perceive as constant is subject to change, emphasizing the dynamic nature of reality.
Themes
FixityChangeParadoxMomentaryPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a philosophical discussion about the nature of reality and existence.
More from Octavio Paz
All quotes βBy suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death
Octavio PazRead
The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the Press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it he cannot grow or mature.
Octavio PazRead
Poetry is not a genre in harmony with the modern world; its innermost nature is hostile or indifferent to the dogmas of modern times, progress and the cult of the future.
Octavio PazRead
If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.
Octavio PazRead
Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past.
Octavio PazRead
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Just as we might take Darwin as an example of the normal extraverted thinking type, the normal introverted thinking type could be represented by Kant. The one speaks with facts, the other relies on the subjective factor. Darwin ranges over the wide field of objective reality, Kant restricts himself to a critique of knowledge.
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