Science grows and Beauty dwindles.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that as science advances, the appreciation for beauty may diminish.
In this quote, Alfred Lord Tennyson expresses a concern that the relentless pursuit of scientific knowledge and technological advancement may come at the cost of our appreciation for beauty and the arts. It highlights a dichotomy between the empirical world of science, which focuses on facts and rationality, and the subjective experience of beauty, which is fundamental to human emotion and creativity. Tennyson seems to warn that an overemphasis on scientific progress could lead to a neglect of the aesthetic and emotional aspects of life that enrich our existence.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of arts education, one might quote Tennyson to emphasize the need for balance.
Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.
How many a father have I seen, A sober man, among his boys, Whose youth was full of foolish noise.
O Love! what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine!
Earth is dry to the centre,_x000D_ But spring, a new comer,_x000D_ A spring rich and strange,_x000D_ Shall make the winds blow_x000D_ Round and round,_x000D_ Thro' and thro',_x000D_ Here and there,_x000D_ Till the air_x000D_ And the ground_x000D_ Shall be fill'd with life anew.
O love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills, And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me, And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. - Tithonus
I have a photograph of myself when I was 2 years of age, and I don't recognize the person in the photograph. She doesn't look anything like me, and I can't find any trace of her in me physically. And yet I remember her very, very well - even her anxiety.
If all ideas have to be bought, then you have an intellectually regressive system that will assure you have a highly knowledgeable elite and an ignorant mass.
A man must know his destiny… if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, twice, or at the very most, three times, fate will reach out and tap a man on the shoulder… if he has the imagination, he will turn around and fate will point out to him what fork in the road he should take, if he has the guts, he will take it.
We have heard the rationales offered by the nuclear superpowers. We know who speaks for the nations. But who speaks for the human species? Who speaks for Earth?
A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society. ... A great society is simply a big and complicated urban society.
Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic?" "I give." "You get someone who stays up all night torturing himself mentally over the question of whether or not there's a dog.
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