And from that time on I bathed in the Poem Of the Sea, star-infused and churned into milk, Devouring the green azures; where, entranced in pallid flotsam, A dreaming drowned man sometimes goes down.
Arthur RimbaudRead
I found I could extinguish all human hope from my soul.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a deep sense of despair and the loss of optimism in life.
In this quote, Arthur Rimbaud expresses the profound sense of emptiness and hopelessness that can inhabit the human soul. It suggests a dramatic internal struggle where one feels capable of removing all hope, which can be interpreted as a critique of existential despair and the endless cycle of searching for meaning in a chaotic world.
Themes
DespairHopeSoulExistentialismMeaning
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used to enhance a discussion on the theme of existentialism in literature.
More from Arthur Rimbaud
All quotes →My wisdom is as spurned as chaos. What is my nothingness, compared to the amazement that awaits you?
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In the great glasshouses streaming with condensation, the children in mourning-dress beheld marvels.
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I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.
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Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life.
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What a life! True life is elsewhere. We are not in the world.
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