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Man beholds the earth, and it is breathing like a great lung; whenever it exhales, delightful life swarms from all its pores and reaches out toward the sun, but when it inhales, a moan of rupture passes through the multitude, and corpses whip the ground like bouts of hail.
Peter Wessel Zapffe
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote reflects on the dynamic relationship between life and death in nature.

Peter Wessel Zapffe's quote poetically illustrates the balance between creation and destruction observed in nature. He describes the earth as a living entity, exhaling life and vitality while simultaneously inhaling, which symbolizes moments of despair and death. This duality emphasizes the fragile beauty of existence and the inevitable presence of mortality within the cycle of life.

Themes

NatureLifeDeathBalanceExistence

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about environmental conservation, this quote can highlight the need to respect the balance of nature.

More from Peter Wessel Zapffe

The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its bearer to the ground.
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When a human being takes his life in depression, this is a natural death of spiritual causes. The modern barbarity of 'saving' the suicidal is based on a hair-raising misapprehension of the nature of existence.
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As long as humankind recklessly proceeds in the fateful delusion of being biologically fated for triumph, nothing essential will change.
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The seed of a metaphysical or religious defeat is in us all. For the honest questioner, however, who doesn't seek refuge in some faith or fantasy, there will never be an answer.
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A coin is turned around before it is handed to the beggar, yet a child is unflinchingly tossed into cosmic bruteness.
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