Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change.
H. G. WellsRead
Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects how contemplating the vastness of the universe can put personal troubles into perspective.
H. G. Wells poetically expresses the idea that when one contemplates the stars, it becomes evident how small and insignificant personal problems are in the grand scheme of the universe. The mention of the stars' unfathomable distance and their slow movements emphasizes the vastness of time and space, encouraging a sense of humility and a broader perspective on life’s troubles.
Themes
StarsTroublesPerspectiveUniversePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on resilience, this quote can help convey how small our daily struggles are compared to the universe.
More from H. G. Wells
All quotes →He spares no resource in telling of his dead inventions... Bare verbs he rarely tolerates. He splits infinitives and fills them up with adverbial stuffing. He presses the passing colloquialism into his service. His vast paragraphis sweat and struggle; the
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It [a new world order] needs only that the governments of Britain, the United States, France, Germany, and Russia should get together in order to set up an effective control of currency, credit, production, and distribution – that is to say, an effective ‘dictatorship of prosperity,’ for the whole world. The other sixty odd States would have to join in or accommodate themselves to the over-ruling decisions of these major Powers.
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Things that would have made fame of a less clever man seemed tricks in his hands. It is a mistake to do things too easily.
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But I was too restless to watch long; I'm too Occidental for a long vigil. I could work at a problem for years, but to wait inactive for twenty-four hours - that's another matter.
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The greatest task of democracy, its ritual and feast - is choice.
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