In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.
Interpretation
This quote speaks to the experience of deep emotional struggles and the feeling of being trapped in despair.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote encapsulates the profound sense of hopelessness that can accompany difficult periods in life, often likening such experiences to a never-ending cycle of darkness. The phrase 'three o'clock in the morning' symbolizes the time when oneβs fears and troubles seem to loom the largest, representing a moment when clarity and relief seem farthest away, emphasizing the relentless nature of inner turmoil.
In practice
This quote can be referenced in a personal blog post discussing mental health struggles.
Don't be so anxious about it,' she laughed. 'I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do; I never got the trick of it.' She looked down at him, shy and fatigued. 'So here we are. I told you years ago that I had the makings of Cinderella.' He took her hand; she drew it back instinctively and then replaced it in his. 'Beg your pardon. Not even used to being touched. But I'm not afraid of you, if you stay quiet and don't move suddenly.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
It was about then [1920] that I wrote a line which certain people will not let me forget: "She was a faded but still lovely woman of twenty-seven."
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
But you can love more than just one person, can't you?
A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.
Physically robust infrastructure is not enough if it fails to foster a healthy community; ultimately, all infrastructure is social.
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest...and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war
No one is so completely disenchanted with the world, or knows it so thoroughly, or is so utterly disgusted with it, that when it begins to smile upon him he does not become partially reconciled to it.
We live today not in the digital, not in the physical, but in the kind of minestrone that our mind makes of the two.
If we are Christians, we must look like Christ - this is my deep conviction.
Nothing can have as its destination anything other than its origin. The contrary idea, the idea of progress, is poison.
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