Visions of glory, spare my aching sight! Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!
Thomas GrayRead
Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the emotional and powerful nature of poetry as a form of expression.
Thomas Gray's quote suggests that poetry embodies the essence of human thoughts and emotions, breathing life into ideas and burning with passion through carefully chosen words. It highlights the transformative power of poetry, capable of resonating deeply with the reader or listener, invoking feelings and thoughts that linger long after the poem has been read or heard.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the importance of literature in education.
Visions of glory, spare my aching sight! Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!
Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, A youth to fortune and to fame unknown: Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields beloved in vain! Where once my careless childhood stray'd, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow.
Any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity.
And little he knew of the things that ink may do, how it can mark a dead man's thought for the wonder of later years, and tell of happening that are gone clean away, and be a voice for us out of the dark of time, and save many a fragile thing from the pounding of heavy ages; or carry to us, over the rolling centuries, even a song from lips long dead on forgotten hills.
Simple ingredients, treated with respect... put them together and you will always have a great dish.
I can hold a cup of sake on a full moon in Japan, and the reflection of the moon in that little cup can make me feel so enthusiastic about beauty. That one good, magical moment can give me enough to create other things like the teardrop earring or necklace.
A lot of work and thinking goes into my DJing. I want the entire night to progress seamlessly and when I have to adapt the energy on the fly for the crowd on any given night, I can do so with harmonic mixes that I've practiced over and over again. I am far from the only DJ that does this and it's something I take pride in being able to do.
I'd say, if you want to be an artist, start with your art; start with making great music and it will, hopefully, eventually cut through all of the nonsense that is out there.
It's simple: You get a part. You play a part. You play it well. You do your work and you go home. And what is wonderful about movies is that once they're done, they belong to the people. Once you make it, it's what they see. That's where my head is at.
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