The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own.
William EmpsonRead
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. It is not the effort nor the failure tires. The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that negative experiences or failures can linger and have a lasting detrimental effect on an individual.
William Empson's quote reflects on the idea that failures and negative experiences can permeate one's overall well-being, like poison in a bloodstream. It emphasizes that it is not merely the act of trying or failing that wears one down, but rather the accumulation of unresolved pain and disappointment that continues to affect a person long after the initial events have passed.
Themes
FailurePainMental_HealthWellbeingRecovery
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about overcoming personal struggles.
More from William Empson
All quotes →Waiting for the end, boys, waiting for the end. _x000D_ What is there to be or do?_x000D_ What's become of me or you?_x000D_ Are we kind or are we true?_x000D_ Sitting two and two, boys, waiting for the end.
William EmpsonRead
Similar quotes
Industrial man—a sentient reciprocating engine having a fluctuating output, coupled to an iron wheel revolving with uniform velocity. And then we wonder why this should be the golden age of revolution and mental derangement.
Aldous HuxleyRead
A man dies ... only a few circles in the water prove that he was ever there. And even they quickly disappear. And when they're gone, he's forgotten, without a trace, as if he'd never even existed. And that's all.
Wolfgang BorchertRead
George's son had done his work so thoroughly that he was considered too good a workman to live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at twelve o'clock that same day—another instance of the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow out a train of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly consistent conduct in a world made up so largely of compromise.
Thomas HardyRead
The sin of fallen man is this: Man seeks the benefits of God while at the same time fleeing from God Himself.
R. C. SproulRead
If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, and hug it in mine arms.
William ShakespeareRead
The creator of the heavens obeys a carpenter; the God of eternal glory listens to a poor virgin. Has anyone ever witnessed anything comparable to this? Let the philosopher no longer disdain from listening to the common laborer; the wise, to the simple; the educated, to the illiterate; a child of a prince, to a peasant.
Anthony Of PaduaRead