In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on humanity's darker traits and foreshadows a grim future, while emphasizing the value of knowledge and literature.
Leo Rosten's quote contemplates the destructive aspects of human nature, such as malice and rage, and poses a dire question about the fate of humanity amidst these tendencies. It suggests that in the midst of darkness, there is a silent but powerful call from the knowledge contained in unwritten books, urging us to recognize and confront our flaws instead of succumbing to them.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of literature in understanding human nature, one could cite this quote to emphasize its relevance.
Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.
I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.
I came to believe it not true that "the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one." I think it is the other way around: It is the brave who die a thousand deaths. For it is imagination, and not just conscience, which doth make cowards of us all. Those who do not know fear are not truly brave.
The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.
Words sing. They hurt. They teach. They sanctify. They were man's first, immeasurable feat of magic. They liberated us from ignorance and our barbarous past.
The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make a difference that you lived at all-using the talents that God has given you for the betterment of others.
I wonder if we are all wrong about each other, if we are just composing unwritten novels about the people we meet?
That your enemies have been created is God's doing; that they hate you and wish to ruin you is their own doing. What should you say about them in your mind? "Lord be merciful to them, forgive them their sins, put the fear of God in them, change them!" You are loving in them not what they are, but what you would have them to become.
Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.
Just because you believe in something does not mean that it is true.
He was a tool of the boss, without brains or backbone.
God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.