There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.
T. S. EliotRead
Liberty is a different kind of pain from prison.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Liberty comes with its own challenges and burdens, differing from the constraints of imprisonment.
In this quote, T. S. Eliot suggests that while liberty is often viewed as a positive state, it also entails a unique set of struggles and responsibilities that can be just as painful as being confined. Unlike the physical limitations of prison, the pain of liberty could stem from the emotional, moral, and ethical dilemmas that come with freedom, illustrating the complexity of human existence.
Themes
LibertyPainFreedomStrugglesResponsibility
In practice
Example use cases
During a graduation speech, to emphasize the bittersweet nature of newfound freedom.
More from T. S. Eliot
All quotes βHalf of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.
T. S. EliotRead
I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics.
T. S. EliotRead
If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
T. S. EliotRead
For I have known them all already, known them allβ Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
T. S. EliotRead
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
T. S. EliotRead
Similar quotes
God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.
Dag HammarskjoldRead
I understand a ship to be made for the carrying and preservation of the cargo, and so long as the ship can be saved, with the cargo, it should never be abandoned. This Union likewise should never be abandoned unless it fails and the possibility of its preservation shall cease to exist, without throwing passengers and cargo overboard.
Abraham LincolnRead
One receives as reward for much ennui, despondency, boredom -such as a solitude without friends, books, duties, passions must bring with it -those quarter-hours of profoundest contemplation within oneself and nature. He who completely entrenches himself against boredom also entrenches himself against himself: he will never get to drink the strongest refreshing draught from his own innermost fountain.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
In all people I see myself - none more, and not one a barleycorn less; And the good or bad I say of myself, I say of them.
Walt WhitmanRead
The trouble with these people is that their cities have never been bombed and their mothers have never been told to shut up.
Charles BukowskiRead
We spend our time envying people whom we wouldn't wish to be.
Jean RostandRead