Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that excessive focus on material acquisition diminishes our true potential.
In this quote, Wordsworth expresses a critical view of how modern society prioritizes consumption and materialism at the cost of our deeper abilities and human experience. He implies that by getting and spending, we waste not only our resources but also our creative and spiritual powers, diverting our attention from more meaningful pursuits.
In practice
In a discussion about minimalism and personal fulfillment.
For mightier far_x000D_ _x000D_ Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway_x000D_ _x000D_ Of magic potent over sun and star,_x000D_ _x000D_ Is love, though oft to agony distrest,_x000D_ _x000D_ And though his favourite be feeble woman's breast.
By all means sometimes be alone; salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear; dare to look in thy chest; and tumble up and down what thou findest there.
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,_x000D_ _x000D_ The earth, and every common sight,_x000D_ _x000D_ To me did seem_x000D_ _x000D_ Apparelled in celestial light,_x000D_ _x000D_ The glory and the freshness of a dream.
Books are yours, Within whose silent chambers treasure lies Preserved from age to age; more precious far Than that accumulated store of gold And orient gems, which, for a day of need, The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs. These hoards of truth you can unlock at will.
The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune.
Shalt show us how divine a thing A woman may be made.
Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty. Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale. Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal. Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness. Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation. Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway.
That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.
Israel claims it needs nuclear weapons as a deterrent against any threat to its existence. The Arab world in return feels that this is an imbalanced system; there is a sense of humiliation and impotence.
Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish.
It [the scarlet letter] had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.
In the end, the only events of my life worth telling are those when the imperishable world erupted into this transitory one All other memories of travels, people and my surroundings have paled beside these interior happenings But my encounters with the 'other' reality, my bouts with the unconscious, are indelibly engraved on my memory. In that realm there has always been wealth in abundance, and everything else has lost importance by comparison.
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