The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive.
Anais NinRead
There are only two kinds of freedom in the world; the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of the artist and the monk who renounces possessions.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the contrasting types of freedom experienced by the wealthy and the spiritually liberated.
Anais Nin's quote presents a profound observation on the nature of freedom. It suggests that while the rich and powerful enjoy freedom that comes with material wealth and influence, there is another kind of freedom found in the lives of artists and monks who choose to let go of possessions and societal expectations. This dichotomy invites reflection on what true freedom means and how it can manifest in varying lifestyles.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the different paths to personal freedom.
The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive.
Anxiety is love's greatest killer, because it is like the stranglehold of the drowning.
We celebrate peace. Yet we pay no attention to the ways of curing aggression in human beings. And when one sees in psychoanalysis hostility disappearing as people conquer their fears, one wonders if the cure is not there.
The impetus to grow and live intensely is so powerful in me I cannot resist it. I will work, I will love my husband, but I will fulfill myself.
We have been poisoned by fairy tales.
But I lie. I embellish. My words are not deep enough. They disguise, they conceal. I will not rest until I have told of my descent into a sensuality which was as dark, as magnificent, as wild, as my moments of mystic creation have been dazzling, ecstatic, exalted.
The religious superstitions of women perpetuate their bondage more than all other adverse influences.
Let us praise the noble turkey vulture: No one envies him; he harms nobody; and he contemplates our little world from a most serene and noble height.
You're born in pain and pain is what we're in most of the time. And I think that the bigger the pain, the more gods we need.
There lies at the back of every creed something terrible and hard for which the worshipper may one day be required to suffer.
Perhaps it is this specter that most haunts working men and women: the planned obsolescence of people that is of a piece with the planned obsolescence of the things they make. Or sell.
They do not need the sun. Who needs the sun when the eyes glow? Darkness. A woolen fog has wrapped the earth, has dropped a heavy curtain. From far away, from beyond the curtain, comes the sound of drops falling on stone. Far, far away - the autumn, people, tomorrow. ("The North")
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.