You know you are truly alive when youβre living among lions.
Isak DinesenRead
Man reaches the highest point of lovableness at 12 to 17 - to get it back, in a second flowering, at the age of 70 to 90
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that our capacity for love peaks during adolescence and can re-emerge later in life.
Isak Dinesen reflects on the nature of lovableness, arguing that individuals experience their highest levels of affection and connection between the ages of 12 and 17. This capacity for love, often characterized by innocence and enthusiasm, can experience a renaissance later in life, particularly between the ages of 70 and 90, suggesting that the ability to love is not limited to youth but can flourish again in old age.
Themes
LovablenessLoveAgeAdolescenceAging
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of emotional connections at different life stages.
More from Isak Dinesen
All quotes βI do not know if you remember the tale of the girl who saves the ship under mutiny by sitting on the powder barrel with her lighted torch... and all the time knowing that it is empty? This has seemed to me a charming image of the women of my time. There they were, keeping the world in order... by sitting on the mystery of life, and knowing themselves that there was no mystery.
Isak DinesenRead
I was young, and by instinct of self-preservation I had to collect my energy on something, if I were not to be whirled away with the dusk on the farm-roads, or the smoke on the plain. I begun in the evenings to write stories, fairy-tales, and romances, that would take my mind a long way off, to other countries and times.
Isak DinesenRead
The lime trees were in bloom. But in the early morning only a faint fragrance drifted through the garden, an airy message, an aromatic echo of the dreams during the short summer night.
Isak DinesenRead
A visitor is a friend, he brings news, good or bad, which is bread to the hungry minds in lonely places. A real friend who comes to the house is a heavenly messenger, who brings the panis angelorum.
Isak DinesenRead
The Cicada sing an endless song in the long grass, smells run along the earth and falling stars run over the sky, like tears over a cheek. You are the privileged person to whom everything is taken. The Kings of Tarshish shall bring gifts.
Isak DinesenRead
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