Solitude lies at the lowest depth of the human condition. Man is the only being who feels himself to be alone and the only one who is searching for the Other.
Octavio PazRead
In order for sensation to accede to the objectivity of things, it must itself be changed into a thing. The agent of change is language: the sensations are turned into verbal objects.
Interpretation
Language transforms subjective sensations into objective expressions by giving them form.
This quote emphasizes the transformative power of language in our perception of reality. Octavio Paz asserts that for our internal feelings and sensations to achieve objectivity, they must be articulated and reformed through language, thus converting our subjective experiences into tangible forms that can be shared and understood by others.
In practice
In a lecture about the importance of communication in art, this quote can illustrate how language shapes our understanding.
Solitude lies at the lowest depth of the human condition. Man is the only being who feels himself to be alone and the only one who is searching for the Other.
By suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death
The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the Press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it he cannot grow or mature.
Poetry is not a genre in harmony with the modern world; its innermost nature is hostile or indifferent to the dogmas of modern times, progress and the cult of the future.
If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.
Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past.
Maybe I am naive, but I don't think talking about the Holocaust with total and complete cynicism is possible for Israeli politicians. It's inevitable that the Holocaust is part of Israeli politics.
Some of mankind's most terrible misdeeds have been committed under the spell of certain magic words or phrases.
I don't go by my caste, creed or religion. My works speak for me.
If it were possible to have a life absolutely free from every feeling of sin, what a terrifying vacuum it would be.
The universe is a continuous web. Touch it at any point and the whole web quivers.
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.
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