A strong hatred is the best lamp to bear in our hands as we go over the dark places of life, cutting away the dead things men tell us to revere.
Rebecca WestRead
All good biography, as all good fiction, comes down to the study of original sin, of our inherent disposition to choose death when we ought to choose life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the human tendency to make choices that lead to negative outcomes rather than positive ones.
Rebecca West's quote emphasizes the duality of human nature, suggesting that both biographies and fiction explore the theme of original sinβthe inherent tendency of humans to opt for destructive choices. It implies that understanding this inclination is essential to grasping the narratives of our lives, as we often face the choice between life-affirming actions and those that lead us away from fulfillment and vitality.
Themes
BiographyOriginal SinChoicesHuman NatureLifeDeath
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about the themes in literature and how they reflect human behavior.
More from Rebecca West
All quotes βworks of art feel towards human beings exactly as we do towards ghosts. The transparency of spectres, the diffuseness in space which lets them drift through doors and walls, and their smell of death, disgust us not more than we disgust works of art by our meaninglessness, our diffuseness in time which lets us drift through three score years and ten without a quarter as much significance as a picture establishes instantaneously.
Rebecca WestRead
I wonder if we are all wrong about each other, if we are just composing unwritten novels about the people we meet?
Rebecca WestRead
It's my profession to bring people from various outlying districts of the mind to the normal. There seems to be a general feeling it's the place where they ought to be. Sometimes I don't see the urgency myself.
Rebecca WestRead
God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.
Rebecca WestRead
She did not suddenly start being disagreeable this afternoon, she was so good at it, she had evidently practised whatever are the scales and arpeggios of rudeness every day of her life.
Rebecca WestRead
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