God how I hate new countries: They are older than the old, more sophisticated, much more conceited, only young in a certain puerile vanity more like senility than anything.
D. H. LawrenceRead
When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power, we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of shedding ego and personality constraints to embrace the raw and transformative nature of life.
D. H. Lawrence's quote inspires individuals to break free from the confines of their ego and rigid identities, encouraging a return to a more authentic and passionate existence. By doing so, one can experience a profound awakening that allows them to rediscover their true self, confront the challenges and fears that emerge, and ultimately empower themselves to create significant changes in their lives and surroundings.
In practice
During a personal development workshop, this quote could inspire participants to explore their true selves.
God how I hate new countries: They are older than the old, more sophisticated, much more conceited, only young in a certain puerile vanity more like senility than anything.
A young man is afraid of his demon and puts his hand over the demon's mouth sometimes and speaks for him. And the things the young man says are very rarely poetry.
And besides, look at elder flowers and bluebells-they are a sign that pure creation takes place - even the butterfly. But humanity never gets beyond the caterpillar stage -it rots in the chrysalis, it never will have wings.It is anti-creation, like monkeys and baboons.
The Christian fear of the pagan outlook has damaged the whole consciousness of man.
The cosmos is a vast living body, of which we are still parts. The sun is a great heart whose tremors run through our smallest veins. The moon is a great nerve center from which we quiver forever. Who knows the power that Saturn has over us, or Venus? But it is a vital power, rippling exquisitely through us all the time.
... he preferred his own madness, to the regular sanity. He rejoiced in his own madness, he was free. He did not want that old sanity of the world, which was become so repulsive. He rejoiced in the new-found world of his madness. It was so fresh and delicate and so satisfying.
To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important.
I have one major rule: Everybody is right. More specifically, everybody β including me β has some important pieces of truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace.
A lifelong intimacy with animals has got me out of the common notion that they are automata with a slight infusion of intelligence in their composition. The mind in beast and bird, as in man, is the main thing.
Not to be born surpasses thought and speech. The second best is to have seen the light and then go back quickly whence we came
But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!
People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.
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