...we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail among sacred islands of the mad till death shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.
Sylvia PlathRead
I feel self-repressed again. The old fall disease. Where is my willpower? The idea of a life gets in the way of my life...I dream too much, work too little.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the struggle between dreams and taking action in life.
Sylvia Plath's quote captures a common internal conflict where an individual's aspirations and dreams hinder their proactive engagement with life. The reference to feeling 'self-repressed' suggests a struggle with inaction, revealing that the lofty ideals and dreams can become barriers to living fully in the present moment. Plath's metaphor of the 'old fall disease' hints at a recurring cycle of disconnection from one's own desires and the frustration that arises when willpower fades.
Themes
Self-RepressionDreamsWillpowerLifeAction
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared during a motivational speech about taking action to achieve oneβs dreams.
More from Sylvia Plath
All quotes βThe hardest thing, I think, is to live richly in the present, without letting it be tainted & spoiled out of fear for the future or regret for a badly-managed past.
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It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous positive and despairing negative--which ever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it.
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You walked in, laughing, tears welling confused, mingling in your throat. How can you be so many women to so many people, oh you strange girl?
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I keep wanting to crawl back into the womb.
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It's the living, the eating, the sleeping that everyone needs. Ideas don't matter so much after all. My three best friends are Catholic. I can't see their beliefs, but I can see the things they love to do on earth. When you come right down to it, I do believe in the freedom of the individual.
Sylvia PlathRead
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