Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done.
Seamus HeaneyRead
Your temperament is what you write with, but it's also how you deal with the world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Your personality influences both your writing and your interactions with others.
Seamus Heaney suggests that a person's temperament plays a crucial role in their creative expression and their approach to life. This quote reflects the idea that the way one perceives and interacts with the world is deeply intertwined with their internal emotional state and disposition, impacting both personal and artistic endeavors.
Themes
TemperamentWritingPersonalityWorldviewCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
Sharing this quote at a writers' workshop to encourage reflection on personal influences.
More from Seamus Heaney
All quotes βWhat I've said before, only half in joke, is that everybody in Ireland is famous. Or, maybe better, say everybody is familiar.
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The kinds of truth that art gives us many, many times are small truths. They don't have the resonance of an encyclical from the Pope stating an eternal truth, but they partake of the quality of eternity. There is a sort of timeless delight in them.
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If self is a location, so is love: Bearings taken, markings, cardinal points, Options, obstinacies, dug heels, and distance, Here and there and now and then, a stance.
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In my early teens, I acquired a kind of representative status: went on behalf of the family to wakes and funerals and so on. And I would be counted on as an adult contributor when it came to farm work - the hay in the summertime, for example.
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I think that water is immediately interesting. It's just, as an element, it is full of life. It is associated with origin; it is bright - it reflects you.
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