Now, five years is nothing in a man's life except when he is very young and very old... - Wang Lung
Pearl S. BuckRead
What seems new is only new to us.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the idea that what we perceive as new is often something that has existed before, just not known to us.
Pearl S. Buck's quote suggests that the concept of novelty is subjective; what may appear new or unfamiliar to one person might not be new at all in a broader context. This reflects the idea that human knowledge is limited, and history often repeats itself in various forms, reminding us that our experiences are just part of a larger continuum of existence.
Themes
NewSubjectiveKnowledgeExperienceHistory
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about technological advancements, one might say 'What seems new is only new to us' to emphasize that innovations often build on past ideas.
More from Pearl S. Buck
All quotes βYou are free when you gain back yourself,β Madame Wu said. βYou can be as free within these walls as you could be in the whole world. And how could you be free if, however far you wander, you still carry inside yourself the constant thought of him? See where you belong in the stream of life. Let it flow through you, cool and strong. Do not dam it with your two hands, lest he break the dam and so escape you. Let him go free, and you will be free.
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We should so provide for old age that it may have no urgent wants of this world to absorb it from meditation on the next. It is awful to see the lean hands of dotage making a coffer of the grave.
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To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
Pearl S. BuckRead
The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.
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Let woman out of the home, let man into it, should be the aim of education. The home needs man, and the world outside needs woman.
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