I was born in a world of opera, theatre, films, poetry, art, and therefore, out of the wire, I made a stage. That's why they call me a high wire artist.
Philippe PetitRead
Life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion: to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge - and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Embrace life's challenges and reject conformity to truly live.
In this quote, Philippe Petit emphasizes the importance of living life boldly and without the constraints of societal norms or expectations. He advocates for a life that is unpredictable and challenging, where each moment is seen as an opportunity for growth rather than a routine to follow. The metaphor of living on a tightrope symbolizes the delicate balance between risk and reward, suggesting that true vitality comes from stepping outside one's comfort zone and embracing the unknown.
Themes
LifeChallengeRebellionRiskFreedom
In practice
Example use cases
A motivational speaker could use this quote to encourage audience members to take risks in their personal and professional lives.
More from Philippe Petit
All quotes →On a very long and very high wire, I will not hope to not be blown off by high winds. I will have the certitude that such could not happen.
Philippe PetitRead
Many people use the words 'death defying' or 'death wishing' when they talk about wire-walking. Many people have asked me: 'So do you have a death wish?' After doing a beautiful walk, I feel like punching them in the nose. It's indecent. I have a life wish.
Philippe PetitRead
It's very easy to walk on a wire if you spend a whole lifetime practicing for it.
Philippe PetitRead
I am not up there by chance. I am there by choice. And I know the wire. And I know my limits. And I am a madman of details.
Philippe PetitRead
It is treacherous on a high wire to change your focus point and suddenly look down.
Philippe PetitRead
Similar quotes
I have cultivated my hysteria with delight and terror. Now I suffer continually from vertigo, and today, 23rd of January, 1862, I have received a singular warning, I have felt the wind of the wing of madness pass over me.
Charles BaudelaireRead
While society cannot provide employment for its members, the production/work/income nexus has to be abandoned as a justification for our present parsimony to the unemployed. An assumption cannot be used to justify making second-class citizens of those who are unfortunate enough to constitute living proof of the inaccuracy of that assumption.
Bob HawkeRead
This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.
Douglas AdamsRead
Since the time of Homer every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric.
Edward SaidRead
Those who wait for God are pilgrim souls that have no tie that will hold them when the definite command is issued; no prejudices that will paralyze their effort when in some strange coming of the light they are commanded to take a pathway entirely different to that which was theirs before; having no interests either temporal or eternal, either material or mental or spiritual, that will conflict with the will of God when that will is made known.
G. Campbell MorganRead
But there is a light that goes deeper than the will, a light that lights up the darkness behind it: that light can change your will, can make it truly yours and not another's - not the Shadow's. Into the created can pour itself the creating will, and so redeem it!
George MacdonaldRead