We burned with love for ourselves, all of us, starters of the fire we suffered- our love was the affliction for which only our love was the cure.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
A map such as that one is worth many hundreds, and as luck will have it, thousands of dollars. But more than this, it is a remembrance of that time before our planet was so small. When this map was made, I thought, you could live without knowing where you were not living.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the value of maps not only as tools for navigation but as symbols of a time when the world felt vast and unexplored.
Jonathan Safran Foer highlights the significance of maps as more than mere geographical tools; they serve as reminders of a bygone era when the world felt larger and more mysterious. This nostalgia emphasizes how advancements in technology have transformed our understanding of the world, allowing us to navigate it effortlessly, but perhaps at the cost of losing the sense of wonder and discovery that comes from exploring the unknown.
Themes
MapsNostalgiaExplorationDiscoveryValueWorld
In practice
Example use cases
During a presentation on the importance of exploration in understanding our world.
More from Jonathan Safran Foer
All quotes →Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled. Each second was two hundred yards, to be walked, crawled. You couldn't see the next hour, it was so far in the distance. Tomorrow was over the horizon, and would take an entire day to reach.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
She was not crying Which surprised me very much But I understand now That she had found places For her melancholy That were behind more masks Than only her eyes
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
What do babies dream of? She must be dreaming of the before-life, just as I dream of the afterlife.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
A few weeks after the worst day, I started writing lots of letters. I don't know why, but it was one of the only things that made my boots lighter.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
What is being awake if not interpreting our dreams, or dreaming if not interpreting our wake?
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
Similar quotes
You can win the rat race but you're still a rat.
BanksyRead
What is the society we wish to protect? Is it the society of complete surveillance for the commonwealth? Is this the wealth we seek to have in common - optimal security at the cost of maximal surveillance?
Tom StoppardRead
In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self-defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder - is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?
Frederic BastiatRead
Although a biologist, I must confess I do not understand how life came about... I consider that life only starts at the level of a functional cell. The most primitive cells may require at least several hundred different specific biological macro-molecules. How such already quite complex structures may have come together, remains a mystery to me. The possibility of the existence of a Creator, of God, represents to me a satisfactory solution to this problem.
Werner ArberRead
"I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken." I should like to have that written over the portals of every church, every school, and every courthouse, and, may I say, of every legislative body in the United States. I should like to have every court begin, "I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that we may be mistaken."
Learned HandRead
To protest in the name of morality against 'excesses' or 'abuses' is an error which hints on active complicity. There are no 'abuses' or 'excesses' here, simpily an all-pervasive system.
Simone De BeauvoirRead