QuoteProject
Hope for a great sea-change timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.
Seamus Heaney
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes the struggle between hope for transformation and the reluctance to confront challenges or hold grudges.

Seamus Heaney captures the tension between the desire for significant change in life and the human tendency to avoid confrontation or harbor resentment. The phrase reflects a yearning for profound transformation while acknowledging that fear and pettiness can hold us back from taking the necessary steps to achieve such change.

Themes

HopeChangeForgivenessTransformationRebuke

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech about overcoming obstacles, one might use this quote to illustrate the need for hope in the face of adversity.

More from Seamus Heaney

Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done.
Seamus HeaneyRead
What I've said before, only half in joke, is that everybody in Ireland is famous. Or, maybe better, say everybody is familiar.
Seamus HeaneyRead
The kinds of truth that art gives us many, many times are small truths. They don't have the resonance of an encyclical from the Pope stating an eternal truth, but they partake of the quality of eternity. There is a sort of timeless delight in them.
Seamus HeaneyRead
If self is a location, so is love: Bearings taken, markings, cardinal points, Options, obstinacies, dug heels, and distance, Here and there and now and then, a stance.
Seamus HeaneyRead
In my early teens, I acquired a kind of representative status: went on behalf of the family to wakes and funerals and so on. And I would be counted on as an adult contributor when it came to farm work - the hay in the summertime, for example.
Seamus HeaneyRead
I think that water is immediately interesting. It's just, as an element, it is full of life. It is associated with origin; it is bright - it reflects you.
Seamus HeaneyRead

Similar quotes

Millions of people in nearly 80 countries still live in fear of landmines and explosive remnants of war, which take an unacceptable toll on lives and limbs, and people's livelihoods
Ban Ki-MoonRead
All social change begins with a conversation.
Margaret J. WheatleyRead
I supported this bill. I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.
Ronald ReaganRead
As populations continue to increase, and the climate continues to deteriorate, and as people flock in ever increasing numbers to large, underdeveloped cities, the threat of multiple protracted mega-emergencies has become reality.
Antonio GuterresRead
I see many more men who are feminist, or at least who have learned about life in the context of feminism.
Jane FondaRead
'Movement is life;' and it is well to be able to forget the past, and kill the present by continual change.
Jules VerneRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.