Men are but children of a larger growth, Our appetites as apt to change as theirs, And full as craving too, and full as vain.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that adults are essentially like children, driven by changing desires and cravings.
John Dryden's quote reflects on the nature of human behavior, proposing that despite physical growth and maturity, individuals retain the childlike qualities of desire and vanity. It highlights the idea that our wants and needs are ever-changing and that we may not be as rational or evolved as we think, revealing an underlying simplicity in human nature.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of adulthood versus childhood, this quote serves as a reminder of our inherent desires.
Of no distemper, of no blast he died, _x000D_ But fell like autumn fruit that mellow'd long: _x000D_ Even wonder'd at, because he dropp'd no sooner. _x000D_ Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years; _x000D_ Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more; _x000D_ Till like a clock worn out with eating time, _x000D_ The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
Or hast thou known the world so long in vain?
Shame on the body for breaking down while the spirit perseveres.
Love reckons hours for months, and days for years; and every little absence is an age.
And write whatever Time shall bring to pass_x000D_ _x000D_ With pens of adamant on plates of brass.
β¦So when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And Music shall untune the sky
Christian community is like the Christian's sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature.
We see the world, not as it is, but as we are -- or, as we are conditioned to see it. When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms.
Commerce is so far from being beneficial to arts, or to empire, that it is destructive of both, as all their history shows, for the above reason of individual merit being its great hatred. Empires flourish till they become commercial, and then they are scattered abroad to the four winds.
What is done out of love always occurs beyond good and evil.
I think when money starts to corrupt journalism, it undermines the journalism, and it undermines the credibility of the product, and you end up not succeeding.
If that glad message of your Bible were written in your faces, you would not need to demand belief in the authority of that book in such stiff-necked fashion.
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