On the whole, books are indeed less finite than ourselves. Even the worst among them outlast their authors - mainly because they occupy a smaller amount of physical space than those who penned them. Often they sit on the shelves absorbing dust long after the writer himself has turned into a handful of dust.
Interpretation
Books can persist and impact long after their authors are gone.
This quote reflects on the enduring nature of books compared to their authors, suggesting that while humans are finite and mortal, books have the ability to live on through the knowledge and stories they contain. Even mediocre books can outlast their creators, highlighting the lasting influence of written words beyond the lives of those who wrote them.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of literature, this quote can emphasize how books influence future generations.
Basically, it's hard for me to assess myself, a hardship not only prompted by the immodesty of the enterprise, but because one is not capable of assessing himself, let alone his work. However, if I were to summarize, my main interest is the nature of time. That's what interests me most of all. What time can do to a man.
One always pulls the trigger out of self-interest and quotes history to avoid responsibility or pangs of conscience.
On the whole, infinity is a fairly palpable aspect of this business of publishing, if only because it extends a dead author's existence beyond the limits he envisioned, or provides a living author with a future he cannot measure. In other words, this business deals with the future which we all prefer to regard as unending.
The invention of ethical and political doctrines, which blossomed into our own social sciences, is a product of times when things appeared manageable. The same goes for the criticism of those doctrines, though as a voice from the past, this criticism proved prophetic.
Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those - in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed.
To put it in plain language, Russia is that country where the name of a writer appears not on the cover of his book, but on the door of his prison cell.
It was play rather than work which enabled man to evolve his higher faculties - everything we mean by the word 'culture'.
Children, by nature, are keen, passionate and curious. What was referred to as laziness is often merely an awakening of sensitivity, a psychological inability to submit to certain absurd duties, and a natural result of the distorted, unbalanced education given to them. This laziness, which leads to an insuperable reluctance to learn, is, contrary to appearances, sometimes proof of intellectual superiority and a condemnation of the teacher.
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
Don’t just create content to get credit for being clever — create content that will be helpful, insightful, or interesting for your target audience.
When you just work tactically, in pure football sessions, you can see the way they can think football.
We still raise girls to look to other people for assurance they are attractive and smart, while boys are raised to determine their own value. Many girls are still made to feel it's not feminine to be good at science or math.
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