Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. It is not the effort nor the failure tires. The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.
William EmpsonRead
The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Imaginative literature helps us understand diverse moral perspectives.
William Empson emphasizes that the primary role of imaginative literature is to encourage readers to see the world through the eyes of others, particularly those who hold different moral beliefs. This understanding fosters empathy and broadens our perspective on human behavior and motivations.
Themes
ImaginationLiteratureMoralityPerspectiveEmpathy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared in a book club discussion to emphasize the importance of diverse viewpoints.
More from William Empson
All quotes βWaiting for the end, boys, waiting for the end. _x000D_ What is there to be or do?_x000D_ What's become of me or you?_x000D_ Are we kind or are we true?_x000D_ Sitting two and two, boys, waiting for the end.
William EmpsonRead
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Inside me is the same desperate hope I have watching the ravenous dead and thinking, Oh please, oh please, oh please. The craving inside of me is to be clutched at by some dead girl. To put my ear to her chest and hear nothing. Even getting munched on by zombies beats the idea that I'm only flesh and blood, skin and bone. Demon or angel or evil spirit, I just need something to show itself. Ghoulie or ghosty or long-legged beastie, I just want my hand held.
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When violence becomes imbedded in a region, then this affects everything. It affects your dreams, your fantasies and relationships, and your religion becomes violent, too.
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The savants will write excellent volumes. There will be laureates. But wars will continue just the same until the forces of the circumstances render them impossible.
Alfred NobelRead
However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced that in human affairs everything in more or less fortuitous. We do not even believe in the inevitability of our own death. Hence the difficulty of deciphering the present, of detecting the seeds of things to come as they germinate before our eyes. We are not attuned to seeing the inevitable.
Eric HofferRead