Everything is as it was, I discover when I reach my destination, and everything has changed.
Michael FraynRead
Look at your hand. Its structure does not match the structure of assertions, the structure of facts. Your hand is continuous. Assertions and facts are discontinuous.... You lift your index finger half an inch; it passes through a million facts. Look at the way your hand goes on and on, while the clock ticks, and the sun moves a little further across the sky.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote contrasts the continuity of physical experience with the discontinuous nature of facts and assertions.
In this quote, Michael Frayn highlights the difference between our tangible experiences, represented by the continuous movement of our hands, and the fragmented, often rigid nature of facts and assertions that we use to categorize and understand the world. This reflection invites us to appreciate the fluidity of life and the limitations of our frameworks for interpreting our experiences.
Themes
ContinuityAssertionsFactsExperiencePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophy class discussing the nature of reality and perception.
More from Michael Frayn
All quotes →Similar quotes
It is a time when one’s spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death. It is a time when one is filled with vague longings; when one dreams of flight to peaceful islands in the remote solitudes of the sea, or folds his hands and says, What is the use of struggling, and toiling and worrying any more? let us give it all up.
Mark TwainRead
A distracted existence leads us to no goal
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: The criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. They defended that road so valiantly that they were forced to execute many people. Later it became clear that there was no paradise, that the enthusiasts were therefore murderers.
Milan KunderaRead
Saying that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.
Jean Michel JarreRead
Our prayers are heard by God not according to what we try to be when we pray, but who we are when we are not praying
Joyce MeyerRead
The U.S. Constitution protects our privacy from the prying eyes of government. It does not, however, protect us from the prying eyes of companies and corporations.
Simon SinekRead