The war had made a man of him! It had coarsened him and hardened him. There was no other way to look at it. It had made him reach a point at which he would no longer stand unbearable things.
Ford Madox FordRead
Higher than the beasts, lower than the angels, stuck in our idiot Eden.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the human condition, highlighting our complex nature between base instincts and higher aspirations.
Ford Madox Ford's quote encapsulates the duality of human existence. It acknowledges that while humans possess the capacity for lofty ideals and angelic qualities, we are also rooted in our primal, instinctive behaviors, often referred to as 'beasts.' The phrase 'stuck in our idiot Eden' suggests that despite our potential for greatness, we remain in a flawed state, caught in a cycle of ignorance and vice.
Themes
Human ConditionDualityExistenceAspirationsBase Instincts
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about human nature during a philosophy class, you might quote this to provoke thought.
More from Ford Madox Ford
All quotes βMind, I am not preaching anything contrary to accepted morality. I am not advocating free love in this or any other case. Society must go on, I suppose, and society can only exist if the normal, if the virtuous, and the slightly deceitful flourish, and if the passionate, the headstrong, and the too-truthful are condemned to suicide and madness.
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There is no man who loves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of his courage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will be the mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.
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You have to wait together - for a week, for a year, for a lifetime, before the final intimate conversation may be attained ... and exhausted. So that ... That in effect was love.
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Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.
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It is not merely that people must die and people must suffer, if not here, then there. But what is dreadful is that the world goes on and people go on being stupidly cruel - in the old ways and all the time.
Ford Madox FordRead
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