Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.
Robertson DaviesRead
The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that many people wish for a future that resembles a perfect past, rather than embracing new possibilities.
Robertson Davies highlights a common tendency among individuals to long for a future that mirrors an idealized version of the past. Rather than striving for progress or transformation, this mindset limits potential by clinging to nostalgia and an unrealistic view of what once was, suggesting that growth and change are often necessary for a truly satisfactory future.
Themes
NostalgiaFuturePastChangeProgress
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about embracing change, one might use this quote to encourage the audience to look forward rather than backward.
More from Robertson Davies
All quotes →Pessimism is a very easy way out because it is a short view of life. If you look at what is happening around us today, you can't help but feel that life is a terrible complexity of problems. But if you look back a few thousand years, you realize that we have advanced fantastically. If you take a long view, I do not see how you can be pessimistic about the future of mankind.
Robertson DaviesRead
This is one of the cruelties of the theatre of life; we all think of ourselves as stars and rarely recognize it when we are indeed mere supporting characters or even supernumeraries.
Robertson DaviesRead
Everything matters. The Universe is approximately fifteen billion years old, and I swear that in all that time, nothing has ever happened that has not mattered, has not contributed in some way to the totality.
Robertson DaviesRead
The egotist is all surface; underneath is a pulpy mess and a lot of self-doubt. But the egoist may be yielding and even deferential in things he doesn't consider important; in anything that touches his core he is remorseless.
Robertson DaviesRead
The best among our writers are doing their accustomed work of mirroring what is deep in the spirit of our time; if chaos appears in those mirrors, we must have faith that in the future, as always in the past, that chaos will slowly reveal itself as a new aspect of order.
Robertson DaviesRead
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