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
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.
In practice
In a discussion about human behavior versus animal instincts.
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.
Meanwhile 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.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs and flowers?
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.
Annihilating all that's made, To a green thought in a green shade.
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.
Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some it means anything, which enervate a necessary government; excite a jealousy of the rulers who are our own choice, and keep society in confusion for want of a power sufficiently concentered to promote good.
Cant you understand that romanticism is no more an enemy of science than mysticism is? In fact, romanticism and science are good for each other. The scientist keeps the romantic honest and the romantic keeps the scientist human.
We often cause ourselves suffering by wanting only to live in a world of valleys, a world without struggle and difficulty, a world that is flat, plain, consistent.
The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.
Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being?
Lunatics have no age. If we were crazy, you and I, we might be a great deal younger.
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