Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.
Wallace StevensRead
How full of trifles everything is! It is only one's thoughts that fill a room with something more than furniture.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the importance of perception and thought in shaping our experiences of the world around us.
Wallace Stevens suggests that the physical objects in a room are merely trifles compared to the richness of our thoughts and ideas. It is our internal reflections that truly fill a space with meaning and depth, indicating that our mental landscape can significantly influence how we perceive and engage with our environment.
In practice
In a speech about creativity, one might use this quote to emphasize the power of thought.
Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.
Most modern reproducers of life, even including the camera, really repudiate it. We gulp down evil, choke at good.
After one has abandoned a belief in God, poetry is that essence which takes its place as life's redemption.
Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
LIGHT FROM WITHIN my friend, cancer got you damn it: you had it beat for seven years at least. how did it come back? Why all that pain. again. and you, such a fighter you fought me over and over with tears and words and promises. you fought for me with honesty and a light so bright it hurts my heart. sweet lorna. at peace now finally no more battles, just light from within a flickering candle in the dark burns with you.
Unfortunately there is nothing more inane than an Easter carol. It is a religious perversion of the activity of Spring in our blood.
'Infidel' is a term of reproach, which Christians and Mohammedans, in their modesty, agree to apply to those who differ from them.
Man unquestionably has impressive powers... But after all our obedience and good works, we cannot be saved from the effects of our sins without the grace extended by the atonement of Jesus Christ... Man cannot earn his own salvation.
My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.
I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced.
We are travelers on a cosmic journey,stardust,swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.
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