Justice and mercy/ Are human dreams, they do not concern the birds nor the fish nor eternal God.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that concepts like justice and mercy are human ideals and do not apply to nature or a higher power.
Robinson Jeffers highlights the notion that justice and mercy are constructs of human society, emphasizing that these ideals are not relevant to the natural world—symbolized by birds and fish—or to God, who exists beyond human concerns. This perspective invites reflection on the inherent differences between human values and the indifferent realities of nature and divinity.
In practice
During a lecture on ethics, this quote could be used to illustrate the limitations of human concepts when discussing the natural order.
As for me, I would rather be a worm in a wild apple than a son of man. But we are what we are, and we might remember not to hate any person, for all are vicious; And not to be astonished at any evil, all are deserved; And not to fear death; it is the only way to be cleansed.
Nature knows that people are a tide that swells and in time will ebb, and all their works dissolve ... As for us: We must uncenter our minds from ourselves. We must unhumanize our views a little and become confident as the rock and ocean that we are made from.
Does it matter whether you hate yourself? At least love your eyes that can see, your mind that can hear the music, the thunder of the wings.
Poetry is not a civilizer, rather the reverse, for great poetry appeals to the most primitive instincts.
I've changed my ways a little, I cannot now Run with you in the evenings along the shore, Except in a kind of dream, and you, if you dream a moment, You see me there.
You making haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.
Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black, or for being slaves.
That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations is as shocking as it is true.
Agnosticism is epistemologically self-contradictory on its own assumptions because its claim to make no assertion about ultimate reality rests upon a most comprehensive assertion about ultimate reality.
You can't just say there is a God because well, the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children. You have to account for the fact that almost all animals in the wild live under stress with not enough to eat and will die violent and bloody deaths. There is not any way that you can just choose the nice bits and say that means there is a God and ignore the true fact of what nature is.
You've confused a war on your religion with not always getting everything you want.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.