Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.
Interpretation
As we age, the fear of taking risks often grows, leading to more hesitation.
In this quote, Hemingway reflects on the idea that as individuals grow older, they tend to become more cautious and hesitant when it comes to taking risks. This is often due to a greater awareness of potential consequences and a desire for safety, which might inhibit boldness and spontaneity that is often more prevalent in youth. Thus, the weight of experiences and the passage of time can lead to an increase in self-doubt and anxiety about making decisions that involve uncertainty.
In practice
During a motivational speech about embracing challenges, this quote emphasizes the importance of overcoming fear related to age.
He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on.
How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.
When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.
There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.
There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
Appearance is something absolute, but reality is not that way - everything is interdependent, not absolute. So that view is very helpful to maintain a peace of mind because the main destroyer of a peaceful mind is anger.
It is said that a wise man rules over the stars, but this does not mean that he rules over the influences which come from the stars in the sky. It means that he rules over the powers which exist in his own constitution.
The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind.
Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
One of the pervasive risks that we face in the information age, as I wrote in the introduction, is that even if the amount of knowledge in the world is increasing, the gap between what we know and what we think we know may be widening.
Every great man is always being helped by everybody, for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.
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