How vainly men themselves amaze, / To win the palm, the oak, or bays; / And their incessant labours see / Crowned from some single herb or tree.
Andrew MarvellRead
Self-preservation, nature's first great law, all the creatures, except man, doth awe.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The instinct for self-preservation is fundamental in all creatures except for humans, who sometimes act against this instinct.
In this quote, Andrew Marvell reflects on the inherent instinct for self-preservation that governs the behavior of all creatures in nature. He suggests that while this instinct is a natural law, humans possess the unique ability to act contrary to their survival instincts, often engaging in behaviors that may lead to their own detriment.
Themes
Self-PreservationInstinctNatureHumansLaw
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about human behavior versus animal instincts.
More from Andrew Marvell
All quotes βMeanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness; The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find; Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas; Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green glade ... Such was that happy garden-state.
Andrew MarvellRead
How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs and flowers?
Andrew MarvellRead
Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power. Let us roll our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life: Thus, while we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Andrew MarvellRead
Annihilating all that's made, To a green thought in a green shade.
Andrew MarvellRead
Like the vain curlings of the watery maze,_x000D_ Which in smooth streams a sinking weight does raise,_x000D_ So Man, declining always, disappears_x000D_ In the weak circles of increasing years;_x000D_ And his short tumults of themselves compose,_x000D_ While flowing Time above his head does close.
Andrew MarvellRead
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