QuoteProject
The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can't wake up.
D. H. Lawrence
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote suggests that society is oblivious to its own destructive behavior and is in a state of unconsciousness.

D. H. Lawrence reflects on the state of humanity, implying that people are caught up in their own dreams and distractions, unable to perceive the dangers that threaten their existence. The 'snake' symbolizes a hidden menace that is suffocating society, yet individuals remain unaware and unable to awaken to reality. This highlights the idea that many live in ignorance of their circumstances, making them vulnerable to potential harm.

Themes

AwarenessSocietyIgnoranceDangerReality

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about raising awareness on societal issues.

More from D. H. Lawrence

God how I hate new countries: They are older than the old, more sophisticated, much more conceited, only young in a certain puerile vanity more like senility than anything.
D. H. LawrenceRead
A young man is afraid of his demon and puts his hand over the demon's mouth sometimes and speaks for him. And the things the young man says are very rarely poetry.
D. H. LawrenceRead
And besides, look at elder flowers and bluebells-they are a sign that pure creation takes place - even the butterfly. But humanity never gets beyond the caterpillar stage -it rots in the chrysalis, it never will have wings.It is anti-creation, like monkeys and baboons.
D. H. LawrenceRead
The Christian fear of the pagan outlook has damaged the whole consciousness of man.
D. H. LawrenceRead
The cosmos is a vast living body, of which we are still parts. The sun is a great heart whose tremors run through our smallest veins. The moon is a great nerve center from which we quiver forever. Who knows the power that Saturn has over us, or Venus? But it is a vital power, rippling exquisitely through us all the time.
D. H. LawrenceRead
... he preferred his own madness, to the regular sanity. He rejoiced in his own madness, he was free. He did not want that old sanity of the world, which was become so repulsive. He rejoiced in the new-found world of his madness. It was so fresh and delicate and so satisfying.
D. H. LawrenceRead

Similar quotes

There is nothing alive more agonized than man / of all that breathe and crawl across the earth.
HomerRead
Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.
Reinhold NiebuhrRead
Holiness is the balance between my nature and the law of God as expressed in Jesus Christ.
Oswald ChambersRead
Today Americans are overcome not by the sense of endless possibility but by the banality of the social order they have erected against it.
Christopher LaschRead
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
Richard DawkinsRead
On the streets of the city They have taken my Who-I-Am As well as my What-I-Was And now I am desperate for them both Again
Walter Dean MyersRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by D. H. Lawrence | QuoteProject