How do you live with one person for 13 years and another for eight and find both as alien as strangers?
Richard BurtonRead
Little islands are all large prisons: one cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the desire for freedom and the limitations of isolation.
Richard Burton's quote highlights the idea that small, isolated places can feel like prisons, limiting one's experiences and aspirations. The desire to escape and explore the world is symbolized by the swallow's wings, suggesting a longing for the freedom to traverse beyond one's confined surroundings.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a travel blog post about the importance of exploration beyond one's comfort zone.
It is possible to be a master in false philosophy, easier, in fact, than to be a master in the truth, because a false philosophy can be made as simple and consistent as one pleases.
Living is death; dying is life. We are not what we appear to be. On this side of the grave we are exiles, on that citizens; on this side orphans, on that children.
I am often asked the question How can the masses permit themselves to be exploited by the few. The answer is By being persuaded to identify with them.
We drift down time, clutching at straws. But what good's a brick to a drowning man?
I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death, and something else I'd rather not recall just now.
The real question today is not when human life begins, but, what is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother's body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law - the same right we have.
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