If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in his inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into being?
Interpretation
Understanding God through the world around us is challenging, leading us to ponder the complexity of God's thoughts that bring creation to life.
This quote reflects on the difficulty of grasping the nature of God through the visible manifestations of His creation, suggesting that if we struggle to understand Him in His observable works, it becomes even more daunting to fathom His thoughts, which are beyond human comprehension. Edgar Allan Poe raises profound questions about the relationship between the divine and the natural world, inviting us to contemplate the limitations of human perception in understanding the true essence of God.
In practice
In a lecture about the philosophy of religion, this quote can illustrate the challenges of understanding divine nature.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
If there is one thing clear about the centuries dominated by the factory and the wheel, it is that although the machine can make everything from a spoon to a landing-craft, a natural joy in earthly living is something it never has and never will be able to manufacture.
Realise this: one day your soul_x000D_ will depart from your body and you will_x000D_ be drawn behind the curtain that floats between us_x000D_ and the unknown. While you wait for that moment, be happy,_x000D_ because you don't know where you came from and_x000D_ you don't know where you will be going.
No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion; it is an evil government.
The path to paradise begins in hell.
You say I have the most wicked face of any woman. You say my hair is like the serpent locks of Medusa, that my eyes have the cruel cunning of Borgia, that my mouth is the mouth of the sinister scheming Delilah, that my hands are like the talons of a Circe or the blood-bathing Elizabeth Bathory. And then you ask me of my soulβyou wish to know if it is reflected in my face.
The life of faith is not a life of mounting up with wings, but a life of walking and not fainting.
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