I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.
Virginia WoolfRead
I am to be broken. I am to be derided all my life. I am to be cast up and down among these men and women, with their twitching faces, with their lying tongues, like a cork on a rough sea. Like a ribbon of weed I am flung far every time the door opens.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the speaker's experience of feeling vulnerable and subject to the judgments of others throughout life.
Virginia Woolf's quote captures a deep sense of existential struggle and emotional turmoil. It portrays the speaker's feelings of being constantly tossed around in the harshness of social interactions, emphasizing the fragility of their identity and the pain of being misunderstood or dismissed by society. Through vivid metaphors of being like a cork on a rough sea and a ribbon of weed, Woolf illustrates a profound sense of disconnection from others and the inner turmoil that accompanies such experiences.
Themes
VulnerabilityExistentialismIdentitySocial StruggleLoneliness
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about mental health, one might say, 'As Virginia Woolf expressed, 'I am to be broken,' reflecting on how vulnerability is a part of our human experience.
More from Virginia Woolf
All quotes βDeath is woven in with the violets,β said Louis. βDeath and again death.β)
Virginia WoolfRead
He began to search among the infinite series of impressions which time had laid down, leaf upon leaf, fold upon fold softly, incessantly upon his brain; among scents, sounds; voices, harsh, hollow, sweet; and lights passing, and brooms tapping; and the wash and hush of the sea.
Virginia WoolfRead
I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts.
Virginia WoolfRead
I do think all good and evil comes from words. I have to tune myself into a good temper with something musical, and I run to a book as a child to its mother.
Virginia WoolfRead
London perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play and a story and a poem, without any trouble, save that of moving my legs through the streets... To walk alone through London is the greatest rest.
Virginia WoolfRead
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