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
In Christian engagement, the goal is to win the person _x000D_ who is of the other worldview - not to destroy the person.
If there is only empty space, with no suns nor planets in it, then space loses its substantiality.
Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.
Outside our consciousness there lies the cold and alien world of actual things. Between the two stretches the narrow borderland of the senses. No communication between the two worlds is possible excepting across the narrow strip. For a proper understanding of ourselves and of the world, it is of the highest importance that this borderland should be thoroughly explored.
Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency.
One side-effect of the so-called war on terror has been a crisis of liberalism. This is not only a question of alarmingly illiberal legislation, but a more general problem of how the liberal state deals with its anti-liberal enemies.
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