Married couples who quarrel bitterly every day may really need each other as deeply as those who appear to be desperately in love.
Edward AbbeyRead
Music endures and ages far better than books. Books, made of words, are unavoidably attached to ideas, events, conflict, and history, but music has the power to transcend time. At least for a time. Palestrina sounds as fresh today as he did in 1555, but Dante, only three centuries older, already smells of the archaic, the medieval, the catacombs.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Music outlasts books and ideas, maintaining relevance over time.
Edward Abbey illustrates the enduring nature of music compared to literature. While books are deeply connected to specific historical contexts and ideas, causing them to age and become less relevant, music possesses a timeless quality that allows it to resonate across generations. The comparison between Palestrina's music and Dante's writings emphasizes how certain art forms can remain vibrant and relatable, highlighting music's universal transcendence of time.
Themes
MusicEnduranceArtTimelessCulture
In practice
Example use cases
At a concert reflecting on the evolution of music in modern society.
More from Edward Abbey
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If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out the company of those who do real work for an honest purpose.
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The earth is real. Only a fool, milking his cow, denies the cow's reality.
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I believe in nothing that I cannot touch, kiss, embrace.... The rest is only hearsay.
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Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.
Edward AbbeyRead
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