A Poem from Edna St. Vincent Millay: Grown-up Was it for this I uttered prayers, And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs, That now, domestic as a plate, I should retire at half-past eight?
Edna St. Vincent MillayRead
We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race.
Interpretation
Our actions are driven by instinctive impulses aimed at survival, both individually and collectively.
This quote by Edna St. Vincent Millay highlights the idea that human behavior is largely influenced by inherent impulses that prioritize our self-preservation and the preservation of our species. It suggests that beneath our conscious decisions, there are deeper, instinctive drives that shape our actions and interactions with others, ultimately guiding us toward survival and continuity.
In practice
During a philosophy lecture about human behavior.
A Poem from Edna St. Vincent Millay: Grown-up Was it for this I uttered prayers, And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs, That now, domestic as a plate, I should retire at half-past eight?
Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age. The child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.
I went to Boston fully expecting to be arrested - arrested by a polizia created by a government that my ancestors rebelled to establish.
Listen, children: Your father is dead. From his old coats I'll make you little jackets; I'll make you little trousers From his old pants. There'll be in his pockets Things he used to put there, Keys and pennies Covered with tobacco; Dan shall have the pennies To save in his bank; Anne shall have the keys To make a pretty noise with. Life must go on, Though good men die; Anne, eat your breakfast; Dan, take your medicine; Life must go on; I forget just why.
I would I were alive again To kiss the fingers of the rain, To drink into my eyes the shine Of every slanting silver line, To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze From drenched and dripping apple-trees. For soon the shower will be done, And then the broad face of the sun Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth Until the world with answering mirth Shakes joyously, and each round drop Rolls twinkling, from its grass-blade top.
I drank at every vine, the last was like the first. I came upon no wine so wonderful as thirst.
Whatever skills I have acquired, whatever gifts I have been given, I place them at Your service.
A bigot is a person who makes an idol of his commitments.
Science grows and Beauty dwindles.
I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, I can't do anything to change events anyway.
Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within.
If the militarily most powerful and least threatened states need nuclear weapons for their security, how can one deny such security to countries that are truly insecure? The present nuclear policy is a recipe for proliferation. It is a policy for disaster.
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