If the charter of your liberties entails death and despair for untold multitudes, then it is nothing but a license for slaughter.
Amitav GhoshRead
How do you lose a word? Does it vanish into your memory, like an old toy in a cupboard, and lie hidden in the cobwebs and dust, waiting to be cleaned out or rediscovered?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the ephemeral nature of language and memory.
Amitav Ghosh's quote ponders the mysterious process of forgetting a word, likening it to an old toy that becomes lost in the recesses of memory. This metaphor suggests that words can fade from our consciousness, hidden away like forgotten treasures, until they are either rediscovered or remain buried in the cobwebs of time, prompting introspection on the nature of language and memory.
Themes
MemoryLanguageWordsForgettingPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of vocabulary, one could use this quote to illustrate how words can be forgotten over time.
More from Amitav Ghosh
All quotes →I know nothing of this silence except that it lies outside the reach of my intelligence, beyond words - that is why this silence must win, must inevitably defeat me, because it is not a presence at all.
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What would it be like if I had something to defend - a home, a country, a family - and I found myself attacked by these ghostly men, these trusting boys? How do you fight an enemy who fights with neither enmity nor anger but in submission to orders from superiors, without protest and without conscience?
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