Men speak of dreaming as if it were a phenomenon of night and sleep. They should know better. All results achieved by us are self-promised, and all self-promises are made in dreams awake. Dreaming is the relief of labor,the wine that sustains us in act. We learn to love labor, not for itself, but for the opportunity it furnishes for dreaming, which is the great under-monotone of real life, unheard, unnoticed, because of its constancy. Living is dreaming. Only in the graves are there no dreams.
Interpretation
Dreaming is a vital part of living and achieving, transcending mere night visions.
This quote emphasizes that dreaming is not merely confined to sleep; it is integral to our waking lives and aspirations. Lew Wallace suggests that all our accomplishments originate from our ability to dream while awake, providing motivation and purpose to our labor. The quote also posits that dreaming is essential for a meaningful life, as it sustains our efforts and fuels our passions, highlighting how dreams permeate our existence, making life a continuous journey of aspiration.
In practice
During a motivational speech, one might evoke this quote to inspire creativity and perseverance in a workforce.
I know what I should love to do - to build a study; to write, and to think of nothing else. I want to bury myself in a den of books. I want to saturate myself with the elements of which they are made, and breathe their atmosphere until I am of it. Not a bookworm, being which is to give off no utterances; but a man in the world of writing - one with a pen that shall stop men to listen to it, whether they wish to or not.
We must assist the British in the war as if there were no White Paper and we must resist the White Paper as if there were no war.
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.
These principles have given me a way of explaining naturally the union or rather the mutual agreement [conformité] of the soul and the organic body. The soul follows its own laws, and the body likewise follows its own laws; and they agree with each other in virtue of the pre-established harmony between all substances, since they are all representations of one and the same universe.
Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. "No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us... and we drown.
Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts.
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