We have not made the Revolution, the Revolution has made us.
The death clock is ticking slowly in our breast, and each drop of blood measures its time, and our life is a lingering fever.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the inevitability of death and the fleeting nature of life.
Georg Buchner's quote poetically captures the essence of human mortality, suggesting that each heartbeat and every drop of blood is a reminder of the ticking clock of life. It conveys a sense of urgency and reflects on the passion and pain of existence, portraying life as a persistent struggle akin to a fever that lingers yet ultimately fades away. This existential reflection illustrates how time is precious and fleeting, urging us to confront the reality of our own mortality.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the importance of making the most of life, you could quote Buchner to emphasize the urgency of living fully.
More from Georg Buchner
All quotes βThe breath of an aristocrat is the death rattle of freedom.
Raise your eyes and count the small gang of your oppressors who are only strong through the blood they suck from you and through your arms which you lend them unwillingly.
Similar quotes
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He had the air of a spy in a melodrama, missing nothing, liking nothing, looking forward to the great day when everything would be turned upside down.
To place oneself in the position of God is painful: being God is equivalent to being tortured. For being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evils is unimaginable unless God willed them.
Forty years after a battle it is easy for a non-combatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it.
It must be so,-Plato, thou reasonest well! Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'T is the divinity that stirs within us; 'T is Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man. Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
To never think about race means that it doesn't really shape your life, or more specifically, the race that you have is not a burden to you.