You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions.
Isak DinesenRead
Up in this air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.
Interpretation
This quote speaks to the feeling of belonging and the refreshing vitality experienced in nature.
Isak Dinesen's quote reflects the profound sense of peace and contentment that comes from being in a place where one feels truly at home. The imagery of breathing easily in the air of the highlands suggests rejuvenation and clarity, as well as an inner assurance that one is exactly where they are meant to be, highlighting the importance of connecting with nature and oneself.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of nature in our lives.
You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions.
I do not know if you remember the tale of the girl who saves the ship under mutiny by sitting on the powder barrel with her lighted torch... and all the time knowing that it is empty? This has seemed to me a charming image of the women of my time. There they were, keeping the world in order... by sitting on the mystery of life, and knowing themselves that there was no mystery.
I was young, and by instinct of self-preservation I had to collect my energy on something, if I were not to be whirled away with the dusk on the farm-roads, or the smoke on the plain. I begun in the evenings to write stories, fairy-tales, and romances, that would take my mind a long way off, to other countries and times.
The lime trees were in bloom. But in the early morning only a faint fragrance drifted through the garden, an airy message, an aromatic echo of the dreams during the short summer night.
A visitor is a friend, he brings news, good or bad, which is bread to the hungry minds in lonely places. A real friend who comes to the house is a heavenly messenger, who brings the panis angelorum.
The Cicada sing an endless song in the long grass, smells run along the earth and falling stars run over the sky, like tears over a cheek. You are the privileged person to whom everything is taken. The Kings of Tarshish shall bring gifts.
When young girls can get 400,000 likes by doing a sexy selfie... we have to offer them another way of being. To dream of being female astronauts, engineers or presidents.
Do I feel any pressure as the most decorated Winter Olympian in American history? None at all. The only pressures that I know I face are those of how to pay it forward: How can I continually make a positive impact in people's lives, help others achieve their dreams, create their own Olympic mindset, creating champions within themselves?
It is by God’s mercy that we are saved. May we never tire of spreading this joyful message to the world.
Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.
I know it may seem small and insignificant, but it's not about what it is, it's about what it can become. That's not a seed, any more than you're just a boy.
Far from being hopeless, Africa is full of hope and potential, maybe more so than any other continent. The challenge is to ensure that its potential is utilised.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.