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All the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them, Pride, Lust, and Sloth, poetry might never have been born.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Nabokov suggests that certain sins are essential to the creation of poetry.

In this quote, Nabokov highlights the idea that pride, lust, and sloth are not just minor faults; they are vital to the human experience and creativity. These emotions and tendencies drive people to express themselves through art, particularly poetry, suggesting that the darker aspects of humanity can be a source of inspiration.

Themes

PoetrySinsCreativityPrideLustSloth

In practice

Example use cases

During a discussion on the role of emotions in art, this quote can highlight the value of complex human experiences.

More from Vladimir Nabokov

My only grudge against nature was that I could not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her young matrix, her unknown heart, her nacreous liver, the sea-grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys.
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Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
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A change of environment is the traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely.
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But that mimosa grove-the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since-until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.
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...in my dreams the world would come alive, becoming so captivatingly majestic, free and ethereal, that afterwards it would be oppressive to breathe the dust of this painted life.
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I believe the poor fierce-eyed child had figured out that with a mere fifty dollars in her purse she might somehow reach Broadway or Hollywood - or the foul kitchen of a diner (Help Wanted) in a dismal ex-prairie state, with the wind blowing, and the stars blinking, and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen, and everything soiled, torn, dead.
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