Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
John DonneRead
And when a whirl-winde hath blowne the dust of the Churchyard into the Church, and man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the Church-yard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again, and to pronounce, This is the Patrician, this is the noble flower, and this the yeomanly, this the Plebian bran.
Interpretation
This quote explores the complexities of social status and identity in the context of life and death.
John Donne reflects on the inevitability of death and the blurring of social distinctions that occurs after death, suggesting that once we are gone, it becomes impossible to differentiate between people based on their social status. The churchyard symbolizes the common end for all, and the act of sifting dust represents the futile attempt to classify people in a realm where such classifications no longer hold significance.
In practice
In a discussion about the equality of all individuals, one might reference this quote to emphasize that social distinctions vanish in death.
Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right, By these we reach divinity
All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons.
If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damned; alas; why should I be?
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
I call not that virginity a virtue, which resideth onely in the bodies integrity; much less if it be with a purpose of perpetually keeping it: for then it is a most inhumane vice. - But I call that Virginity a virtue which is willing and desirous to yield it self upon honest and lawfull terms, when just reason requireth; and until then, is kept with a modest chastity of body and mind.
People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.
The value of a man is in his intrinsic qualities: in that of which power cannot strip him and which adverse fortune cannot take away. That for which he is indebted to circumstances is mere trapping and tinsel.
The Few assume to be the deputies, but they are often only the despoilers of the Many.
Women must be freed from the idea that they always have to stay young and that they must disfigure themselves at a certain age.
I delight to lodge in such temples as are not regularly kept closed. None of the gods reject me; they make me partner of their roof.
Some deny the existence of misery by pointing to the sun; he denies the existence of the sun by pointing to misery.
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