We have more and more ways to communicate, as Thoreau noted, but less and less to say.
Interpretation
Increased communication options have led to a decrease in meaningful dialogue.
This quote reflects on the paradox of modern communication, suggesting that with the advent of numerous platforms and methods for expression, genuine conversation and meaningful content are diminishing. Pico Iyer points to the irony that while we can reach out to each other in various ways, the substance of what we communicate often lacks depth and significance.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of meaningful conversation in our digital age.
Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting-whether a job or a habit-means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your dreams.
I think one reason, obviously, that I spend so much time in one place is that I've been lucky enough to travel a lot, and now there are other different, invisible trains that are more interesting to me.
I've never meditated in my life. I don't practice yoga nor any religion. I'm a tourist on the realm of stillness.
We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate.
I'm no Buddhist monk, and I can't say I'm in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I've written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn't want or need, not all I did.
The one thing perhaps that technology hasn't always given us is a sense of how to make the wisest use of technology.
Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are.
No journey is too great,_x000D_ when one finds what one seeks.
Ethics evolve naturally, and we trample upon them with laws created by reason and experience.
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
Those spacious regions where our fancies roam,_x000D_ _x000D_ Pain'd by the past, expecting ills to come,_x000D_ _x000D_ In some dread moment, by the fates assign'd,_x000D_ _x000D_ Shall pass away, nor leave a rack behind;_x000D_ _x000D_ And Time's revolving wheels shall lose at last_x000D_ _x000D_ The speed that spins the future and the past:_x000D_ _x000D_ And, sovereign of an undisputed throne,_x000D_ _x000D_ Awful eternity shall reign alone.
If a strong government finds that it can, with impunity, destroy a weak people, then the hour has struck for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.