Never such innocence, Never before or since, As changed itself to past Without a word--the men Leaving the gardens tidy, The thousands of marriages Lasting a little while longer: Never such innocence again.
Philip LarkinRead
One of the quainter quirks of life is that we shall never know who dies on the dame day as we do ourselves.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the strange reality that we are unaware of othersβ deaths occurring at the same moment as our own experience.
Philip Larkin's quote offers a contemplative view on the nature of life and death, highlighting a peculiar aspect of human existence: while we are living our lives, countless others may be experiencing significant life events, including their deaths, concurrently with our own. This notion invites reflection on the interconnectedness of humanity and the shared, yet isolated, experience of living and dying.
Themes
LifeDeathExistenceConsciousnessPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a eulogy, one might say, 'As we grieve today, let us remember that others are experiencing the same loss, as Larkin reminds us of our shared journey.'
More from Philip Larkin
All quotes βUncontradicting solitude Supports me on its giant palm; And like a sea-anemone Or simple snail, there cautiously Unfolds, emerges, what I am.
Philip LarkinRead
Saki says that youth is like hors d'oeuvres: you are so busy thinking of the next courses you don't notice it. When you've had them, you wish you'd had more hors d'oeuvres.
Philip LarkinRead
Above all, though, children are linked to adults by the simple fact that they are in process of turning into them. For this they may be forgiven much. Children are bound to be inferior to adults, or there is no incentive to grow up.
Philip LarkinRead
Originality is being different from oneself, not others.
Philip LarkinRead
I can't understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems: It's like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.
Philip LarkinRead
Similar quotes
Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.
HomerRead
Man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants to be.
Ayn RandRead
For life is tendency, and the essence of a tendency is to develop in the form of a sheaf, creating, by its very growth, divergent directions among which its impetus is divided.
Henri BergsonRead
Free institutions certainly exist, but a tradition of passivity and conformism restricts their use - a cynic might say that this is why they continue to exist.
Noam ChomskyRead
The world's like a ride in a fairground & when you choose to go on it you think it's real, that's how powerful our minds are
Bill HicksRead
Well, the news is mostly about things that go wrong, right? It's about sensationalist incidents that happened today, instead of things that happen every day. So if you watch and follow a lot of the news, at the end of the day, you know exactly how the world is not working.
Rutger BregmanRead