Controlled hysteria is what's required. To exist constantly in a state of controlled hysteria. It's agony. But everyone has agony. The difference is that I try to take my agony home and teach it to sing.
Arthur MillerRead
Immortality is like trying to carve your initials in a block of ice in the middle of July.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The pursuit of immortality is both futile and transient, much like trying to mark something in a temporary state.
In this quote, Arthur Miller illustrates the futility of attempting to achieve immortality, symbolized by the act of carving initials in ice during a hot summer. The ice, much like life itself, is temporary and subject to natural forces, representing how efforts to leave a lasting mark can be rendered meaningless by the passage of time and circumstances. It invites reflection on the nature of legacy and the inevitability of mortality.
Themes
ImmortalityFutilityLegacyMortalityExistence
In practice
Example use cases
In a graduation speech to inspire students about living meaningful lives rather than seeking fame.
More from Arthur Miller
All quotes βThe word "now" is like a bomb through the window, and it ticks.
Arthur MillerRead
Amos Oz is one of the finest novelists of this entire period. MY MICHAEL is a beautiful work of great depth and in some indescribable way lingers in the mind as a lyric song to his country's people as much as a moving love story.
Arthur MillerRead
Just remember, kid, you can quicker get back a million dollars that was stole than a word that you gave away.
Arthur MillerRead
Oh,Elizabeth, your justice would freeze beer.
Arthur MillerRead
The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.
Arthur MillerRead
Similar quotes
Itβs not in the book or in the writer that readers discern the truth of what they read; they see it in themselves, if the light of truth has penetrated their minds.
Saint AugustineRead
Opponents of civil liberties contend the NSA data collection has made our country more safe, but even the most vocal defenders of the program have failed to identify a single thwarted plot.
Rand PaulRead
... 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.
D. H. LawrenceRead
What the whole community comes to believe in grasps the individual as in a vise.
William JamesRead
To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required - not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
John F. KennedyRead
The Pythagoreans degrade impious men into brutes and, if one is to believe Empedocles, even into plants.
Giovanni Pico Della MirandolaRead