You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
Interpretation
Taking responsibility for the relationships and bonds we create is essential and enduring.
This quote emphasizes the idea that when we build connections and form relationships with others, we take on a lifelong obligation to care for those we have bonded with. The act of 'taming' implies that we have invested time and emotion into these relationships, making it our duty to nurture and protect them throughout our lives.
In practice
During a speech about mentorship, you could quote this to illustrate the long-term obligations that come with guiding another person.
Grown-ups love figures... When you tell them you've made a new friend they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies? " Instead they demand "How old is he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make? " Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.
Attitude is a paintbrush. It colors everything!
Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself, thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.
In those days, I didn't understand anything. I should have judged her according to her actions, not her words. She perfumed my planet and lit up my life. I should never have run away! I ought to have realized the tenderness underlying her silly pretensions. Flowers are so contadictory! But I was too young to know how to love her.
When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey.
When the body sinks into death, the essence of man is revealed. Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. Only those relationships matter. The body is an old crock that nobody will miss. I have never known a man to think of himself when dying. Never.
Julian once wrote that coincidences are the scars of fate. There are no coincidences, Daniel. We are puppets of our subconscious desires.
Feminism... I think the simplest explanation, and one that captures the idea, is a song that Marlo Thomas sang, 'Free to be You and Me.'
In the Christian combat, not the striker, as in the Olympic contests, but he who is struck, wins the crown. This is the law in the celestial theatre, where the Angels are the spectators.
Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality.
Philosophy ... is a science, and as such has no articles of faith; accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions.
Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet - the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.
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