When it came night, the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound of the great sea's voice to the men on shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters.
Stephen CraneRead
Philosophy should always know that indifference is a militant thing. It batters down the walls of cities and murders the women and children amid the flames and the purloining of altar vessels. When it goes away it leaves smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Indifference can lead to devastating consequences and destruction in society.
In this quote, Stephen Crane emphasizes the dangers of indifference, suggesting that it is not a passive state but an active force that contributes to violence and destruction. The metaphor of indifference as a militant entity illustrates how its prevalence can result in catastrophic outcomes, showing that apathy towards suffering leads to real harm in the world.
Themes
IndifferenceViolenceDestructionSocietyApathyCruelty
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used during a speech about the importance of social responsibility.
More from Stephen Crane
All quotes →I saw a man pursuing the horizon
Stephen CraneRead
Two or three angels Came near to the earth. They saw a fat church. Little black streams of people Came and went in continually. And the angels were puzzled To know why the people went thus, And why they stayed so long within.
Stephen CraneRead
Sometimes, the most profound of awakenings come wrapped in the quietest of moments.
Stephen CraneRead
Tell her this And more,— That the king of the seas Weeps too, old, helpless man. The bustling fates Heap his hands with corpses Until he stands like a child With surplus of toys.
Stephen CraneRead
Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds.
Stephen CraneRead
Similar quotes
The universe, the solar system, and planet earth in themselves and in their evolutionary emergence constitute for the human community the primary revelation of that ultimate mystery whence all things emerge into being.
Thomas BerryRead
There is magic in my universe, but it's pretty low magic compared to other fantasies.
George R. R. MartinRead
For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
Heaven doesn't make this life less important; it makes it more important.
Billy GrahamRead
The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension.
Vaclav HavelRead
I looked at it [revolver] as if it reminded me of a crime I had committed with an irrepressible smile such as rises sometimes to people’s lips in the face of great catastrophes which are beyond their grasp, the smile that comes at times on certain women’s faces while they are saying they regret the harm they have done. It is the smile of nature quietly and proudly asserting its natural right to kill.
Anais NinRead