Solitude lies at the lowest depth of the human condition. Man is the only being who feels himself to be alone and the only one who is searching for the Other.
Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the illusion of rational thought, suggesting that it can lead to irrational outcomes and suffering.
Octavio Paz reflects on the modern man's perception of his own reasoning capabilities, asserting that while individuals believe their thinking is fully conscious and rational, it may actually lead them into complex problems reminiscent of a nightmare. He points out that this type of thinking can trap people in a cycle of pain and turmoil, showcased metaphorically through 'torture chambers' that recur in the distorted reflections of their own reasoning.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the impact of technology on human reasoning, this quote can highlight the pitfalls of over-reliance on 'logical' thinking.
More from Octavio Paz
All quotes →By suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death
The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the Press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it he cannot grow or mature.
Poetry is not a genre in harmony with the modern world; its innermost nature is hostile or indifferent to the dogmas of modern times, progress and the cult of the future.
If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.
Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past.
Similar quotes
Though the most beautiful creature were waiting for me at the end of a journey or a walk; though the carpet were of silk, the curtains of the morning clouds; the chairs and sofa stuffed with cygnet's down; the food manna, the wine beyond claret, the window opening on Winander Mere, I should not feel -or rather my happiness would not be so fine, as my solitude is sublime.
If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.
Books lie, he said. God dont lie. No, said the judge. He does not. And these are his words. He held up a chunk of rock. He speaks in stones and trees, the bones of things. The squatters in their rags nodded among themselves and were soon reckoning him correct, this man of learning, in all his speculations, and this the judge encouraged until they were right proselytes of the new order whereupon he laughed at them for fools.
I don't believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career.
A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see
Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.