The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.
James JoyceRead
The State is concentric, but the individual is eccentric.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the contrast between societal norms and individual uniqueness.
James Joyce's quote suggests that while the state or society tends to be uniform and centralized, individuals often possess unique and divergent traits that set them apart. This dichotomy reflects the tension between societal expectations and personal identity, where conformity often rules but individuality persists.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of individuality in creativity.
The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.
I think a child should be allowed to take his father's or mother's name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction.
If he had smiled why would he have smiled? To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity.
Gentle lady, do not sing Sad songs about the end of love; Lay aside sadness and sing How love that passes is enough. Sing about the long deep sleep Of lovers that are dead, and how In the grave all love shall sleep: Love is aweary now.
I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
The movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the hillside.
Religion, you know, enters very deep; in reality it is the deepest impression I have in speaking to people, that they are or that they are not of my religion.
Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?
I am persuaded that men think there is no God because they wish there were none. They find it hard to believe in God, and to go on in sin, so they try to get an easy conscience by denying his existence.
Hubbard set up the Church of Scientology in Hollywood in 1954 for a reason. He understood that celebrity was increasingly a feature of American public life, and celebrities themselves were going to be worshiped as minor deities were in the ancient world. The idea was: if you could get them, think how many people would follow.
Normativity, I believe, is very different from motivating force. Neither includes, or implies, the other. Other animals can be motivated by their desires and beliefs. Only we can understand and respond to reasons.
Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.
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