After all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can't trust a person.
Evelyn WaughRead
Free as air; that's what they say- "free as air". Now they bring me my air in an iron barrel.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the idea of freedom by highlighting the contradictions in how we perceive and attain it.
Evelyn Waugh's quote 'Free as air; that's what they say- 'free as air'. Now they bring me my air in an iron barrel' presents a sharp irony about the concept of freedom. It reflects on the notion that while air is typically associated with freedom and accessibility, the 'iron barrel' symbolizes confinement and restriction; thus, it prompts us to question the true nature of freedom in a society that often complicates it by introducing limitations.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the limits of personal freedom in modern society.
After all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can't trust a person.
It is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
There are no poetic ideas; only poetic utterances.
Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
...she had regained what I thought she had lost forever, the magical sadness which had drawn me to her, the thwarted look that had seemed to say, "Surely I was made for some other purpose than this?
That was the change in her from ten years ago; that, indeed, was her reward, this haunting, magical sadness which spoke straight to the heart and struck silence; it was the completion of her beauty.
Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.
Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man.
It isn't what people think that is important, but the reason they think what they think.
Fear of the future is worse than one's present fortune.
In the law, rights are islands of empowerment. . . . Rights contain images of power, and manipulating those images, either visually or linguistically, is central in the making and maintenance of rights. In principle, therefore, the more dizzyingly diverse the images that are propagated, the more empowered we will be as a society.
When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.