Don't just live the length of your life - live the width of it as well.
Diane AckermanRead
One can live at a low flame. Most people do. For some, life is an exercise in moderation (best china saved for special occasions), but given something like death, what does it matter if one looks foolish now and then, or tries too hard, or cares too _x000D_ deeply?
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of fully engaging in life rather than playing it safe and living cautiously.
Diane Ackerman's quote reflects on how many people choose to live their lives moderately and cautiously, reserving their true passions and emotions for special occasions. However, it suggests that when faced with the inevitability of death, it's more important to embrace life fully, even if it means appearing foolish or overly enthusiastic at times, as it ultimately enriches our experiences.
Themes
LifeModerationFearDeathPassion
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about embracing life experiences fully.
More from Diane Ackerman
All quotes →We try to exile ourselves more and more from nature - not always consciously: We build houses; we dismiss nature; nature has to be outside, because we're inside. God forbid something like a cockroach comes inside, or some dust.
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We ogle plants and animals up close on television, the Internet and in the movies. We may not worship the animals we see, but we still regard them as necessary physical and spiritual companions. Technological nature can't completely satisfy that yearning.
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Because IQ tests favor memory skills and logic, overlooking artistic creativity, insight, resiliency, emotional reserves, sensory gifts, and life experience, they can't really predict success, let alone satisfaction.
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American writer_x000D_ _x000D_ 1803-1882_x000D_ _x000D_ Play is our brain's favorite way of learning.
Diane AckermanRead
In rare moments of deep play, we can lay aside our sense of self, shed time's continuum, ignore pain, and sit quietly in the absolute present, watching the world's ordinary miracles. No mind or heart hobbles. No analyzing or explaining. No questing for logic. No promises. No goals. No relationships. No worry. One is completely open to whatever drama may unfold.
Diane AckermanRead
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Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life.
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If you allow yourself to breathe into the depth, wonder, beauty, craziness, and strife everything that represents the fullness of your life you can live fearlessly. Because you come to realize that if you just keep breathing, you cannot be conquered
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The birds sang, the proles sang. the Party did not sing. All round the world, in London and New York, in Africa and Brazil, and in the mysterious, forbidden lands beyond the frontiers, in the streets of Paris and Berlin, in the villages of the endless Russian plain, in the bazaars of China and Japan — everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable figure, made monstrous by work and childbearing, toiling from birth to death and still singing.
George OrwellRead
At the ches with me she (Fortune) gan to pleye; With her false draughts (pieces) dyvers/She staal on me, and took away my fers. And when I sawgh my fers awaye, Allas! I kouthe no lenger playe.
Geoffrey ChaucerRead