I had become, with the approach of night, once more aware of loneliness and time - those two companions without whom no journey can yield us anything.
Lawrence DurrellRead
Perhaps our only sickness is to desire a truth which we cannot bear rather than to rest content with the fictions we manufacture out of each other.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that our desire for an unbearable truth can lead to suffering, whereas the fictions we create serve as a comforting escape.
Lawrence Durrell reflects on the human tendency to chase after truths that may be too difficult to accept, implying that this pursuit of an unattainable reality can be a form of sickness. Instead, he hints at the idea that the fictions we create about ourselves and each other provide a sense of comfort, and perhaps it is more beneficial to embrace these narratives rather than struggle against uncomfortable truths.
Themes
TruthFictionSicknessDesirePerception
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a philosophical debate about the nature of truth and illusion.
More from Lawrence Durrell
All quotes βJourneys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think.
Lawrence DurrellRead
The whole Mediterranean, the sculpture, the palm, the gold beads, the bearded heroes, the wine, the ideas, the ships, the moonlight, the winged gorgons, the bronze men, the philosophers - all of it seems to rise in the sour, pungent taste of these black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water.
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The heaviest impact of the work of art is in the guts. Art does not reason. It manhandles you and changes you.
Lawrence DurrellRead
Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.
Lawrence DurrellRead
We are the children of our landscape; it dictates behavior and even thought in the measure to which we are responsive to it.
Lawrence DurrellRead
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