[A]nd soon now we shall go out of the house and go into the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the transition from personal experiences to the broader, often chaotic world and the heavy burden of time.
Robert Penn Warren's quote delves into the profound journey of life as we leave the confines of our personal experiences and engage with the larger forces of the world. It highlights the inevitable clash between individual history and the collective tumult of life, emphasizing the weight of time's passage and the responsibilities that come with it. The 'convulsion of the world' symbolizes the unpredictability and chaos present in life, while 'the awful responsibility of Time' suggests a deep awareness of our actions and their consequences as we navigate through history.
In practice
During a graduation speech, one could use this quote to emphasize the transition students will face as they leave school.
...the air so still it aches like the place where the tooth was on the morning after youβve been to the dentist or aches like your heart in the bosom when you stand on the street corner waiting for the light to change and happen to recollect how things once were and how they might have been yet if what happened had not happened.
The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful.
And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.
Yet the definition we have made of ourselves is ourselves. To break out of it, we must make a new self. But how can the self make a new self when the selflessness which it is, is the only substance from which the new self can be made?
So little time we live in Time,_x000D_ _x000D_ And we learn all so painfully,_x000D_ _x000D_ That we may spare this hour's term_x000D_ _x000D_ To practice for Eternity.
For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.
Oh people, know that you have committed great sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you!
...it was always our view that in order to attain this [proletarian revolution] and the other far more important aims of the future social revolution, the working class must first take possession of the organised political power of the state and by its aid crush the resistance of the capitalist class and organise society anew.
Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.
Your life is an expression of all your thoughts.
People with advantages are loath to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages.
And I do not want, and I will not accept, a deal in which I am asked to do nothing, in fact, I'm able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income that I don't need, while a parent out there who is struggling to figure out how to send their kid to college suddenly finds that they've got a couple thousand dollars less in grants or student loans.
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