How vainly men themselves amaze, / To win the palm, the oak, or bays; / And their incessant labours see / Crowned from some single herb or tree.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the futility of human effort in the pursuit of glory, as it often leads to trivial rewards.
In this quote, Andrew Marvell critiques the vanity and futility of human endeavors aimed at achieving recognition and accolades. He suggests that despite the intense labor and ambition that people invest in their pursuits, the rewards they receive are often insignificant, symbolized by a single herb or tree, rather than the grand achievements they aspire to, like the palm or the oak. This observation prompts a reflection on the nature of success and the often overlooked simplicity beneath it.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a speech about the true meaning of success and human ambition.
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness; The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find; Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas; Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green glade ... Such was that happy garden-state.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs and flowers?
Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power. Let us roll our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life: Thus, while we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Annihilating all that's made, To a green thought in a green shade.
Self-preservation, nature's first great law, all the creatures, except man, doth awe.
Like the vain curlings of the watery maze,_x000D_ Which in smooth streams a sinking weight does raise,_x000D_ So Man, declining always, disappears_x000D_ In the weak circles of increasing years;_x000D_ And his short tumults of themselves compose,_x000D_ While flowing Time above his head does close.
Anger is the ego's way of cloaking fear to make what is frail seem formidable.
It is better to die of hunger having lived without grief and fear, than to live with a troubled spirit, amid abundance
The adult is the enemy of the child because of the awful process of civilizing this thing that, when it is born, is an animal with no manners, no moral sense at all.
One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train.
Do you suppose you will look the same when you are an old woman as you do now? Most folk have three faces—the face they get when they’re children, the face they own when they’re grown, and the face they’ve earned when they’re old. But when you live as long as I have, you get many more. I look nothing like I did when I was a wee thing of thirteen. You get the face you build your whole life, with work and loving and grieving and laughing and frowning.
Religions have depended on the relative isolation and ignorance of their flocks, forever and this is all breaking down.
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