How prone poor Humanity is to dam up the minutest remnants of its freedom, and build an artificial roof to prevent it looking up to the clear blue sky.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on humanity's tendency to limit its own freedoms and aspirations through self-imposed constraints.
E. T. A. Hoffmann's quote suggests that people often restrict their own freedoms by creating artificial barriers. These barriers prevent them from reaching for higher aspirations and understanding the broader world around them, symbolized by the 'clear blue sky.' It implies a critique of how society or individuals may confine themselves and miss the potential for greater freedom and enlightenment.
In practice
During a motivational speech about self-limiting beliefs.
Why should not a writer be permitted to make use of the levers of fear, terror and horror because some feeble soul here and there finds it more than it can bear? Shall there be no strong meat at table because there happen to be some guests there whose stomachs are weak, or who have spoiled their own digestions?
Though we feel we can choose what we do, our understanding of the molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets.
There is no escape - we pay for the violence of our ancestors.
It is the nature of aphoristic thinking to be always in a state of concluding; a bid to have the final word is inherent in all powerful phrase-making.
A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.
I maintain that two and two would continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.
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