Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor.
Graham GreeneRead
It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn’t the test of man have been carried out in fewer years? Couldn’t we have committed our first major sin at seven, have ruined ourselves for love or hate at ten, have clutched at redemption on a fifteen-year-old deathbed?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the idea that life is long and full of experiences that shape us, questioning the necessity of such a lengthy existence for personal growth and moral testing.
In this quote, Graham Greene contemplates the nature of life and the trials that define humanity. He suggests that the moral and existential challenges we face could potentially be compressed into a shorter lifespan, raising questions about the duration of life and the significance of the experiences we accumulate over the years. Greene's reflection evokes a sense of frustration regarding the prolonged search for meaning and redemption, as well as the inherent complexities of human existence.
Themes
LifeExperiencesMoralityRedemptionExistence
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the challenges of growing up, one might say, 'As Graham Greene suggested, life often feels immeasurably long, filled with inevitable tests of our character.'
More from Graham Greene
All quotes →God is love. I don't say the heart doesn't feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint pot of ditch-water. We wouldn't recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us - God's love.
Graham GreeneRead
Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.
Graham GreeneRead
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
Graham GreeneRead
Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.
Graham GreeneRead
Success is more dangerous than failure, the ripples break over a wider coastline.
Graham GreeneRead
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Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.
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What needs to be kept in mind is both that capitalism is a hyper-abstract impersonal structure and that it would be nothing without our co-operation.
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Childhood is over the moment things are no longer astonishing.
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