From New Year's on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining.
Leonard BernsteinRead
Our most emotionally active life is lived in our dreams, and our cells renew themselves most industriously in sleep. We reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great; he is free from the experience of hostility; he is a poet, and most like an angel.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our inner lives and potential are best expressed in stillness and dreams.
This quote by Leonard Bernstein highlights the significance of our emotional and spiritual life, emphasizing that in moments of stillness—such as sleep, meditation, and prayer—we find our greatest selves. It suggests that through these peaceful experiences, we can rise above negativity and experience profound creativity and freedom, connecting with our inner greatness and potential.
Themes
DreamsMeditationStillnessSpiritualityInner Greatness
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech on personal growth, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of inner peace.
More from Leonard Bernstein
All quotes →Any great art work … revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world - the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air.
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The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another... and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.
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A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future.
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Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we eventually honor with the name of action. We reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great.
Leonard BernsteinRead
In the olden days, everybody sang. You were expected to sing as well as talk. It was a mark of the cultured man to sing.
Leonard BernsteinRead
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