If my devils are to leave me, I'm afraid my angels will take flight as well.
Rainer Maria RilkeRead
Possibility, infinity, beauty -- none of those words were right. [...] What he really wanted to say was: have you felt this? this phantom life streaking like a phosphorescent hound at the edges of your ruin?
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the struggle to articulate profound emotions and experiences in life.
Haven Kimmel's quote delves into the complexity of human experiences that often elude precise expression. It highlights the challenge of conveying deep feelings like beauty, possibility, and the fleeting nature of life, using vivid imagery to convey a sense of urgency and existential reflection.
In practice
In a discussion on existentialism, this quote can illustrate the inadequacy of language in conveying complex feelings.
If my devils are to leave me, I'm afraid my angels will take flight as well.
For tyme ylost may nought recovered be.
Today's dissenters mainly focus their attention and expend their energies on the most inconsequential of trivia. ...Allegedly serious intellectuals quibble endlessly over such ridiculous trivialities...In the meantime, the public is lulled into a perilous somnolence, spoon-fed pap, and palpable untruths, many of which are turned out by special-interest and pressure groups and well organized propaganda machines.
We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw and nervy.
I'm German in my mind, but from a Germany that doesn't exist any more.
Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity -- an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.
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