How do you live with one person for 13 years and another for eight and find both as alien as strangers?
Richard BurtonRead
Little islands are all large prisons: one cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the desire for freedom and the limitations of isolation.
Richard Burton's quote highlights the idea that small, isolated places can feel like prisons, limiting one's experiences and aspirations. The desire to escape and explore the world is symbolized by the swallow's wings, suggesting a longing for the freedom to traverse beyond one's confined surroundings.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a travel blog post about the importance of exploration beyond one's comfort zone.
Attempts to wake before our time are often punished, especially by those who love us most. Because they, bless them, are asleep. They think anyone who wakes up, or who, still asleep, realizes that what is taken to be real is a βdreamβ is going crazy.
When some state or other offered Alexander a part of its territory and half of all its property he told them that 'he hadn't come to Asia with the intention of accepting whatever they cared to give him, but of letting them keep whatever he chose to leave them.' Philosophy, likewise, tells all other occupations: 'It's not my intention to accept whatever time is leftover from you; you shall have, instead, what I reject.' Give your whole mind to her.
For mines are for men, not for money. And money is not something to go mad about, and throw your hat into the air for. Money is for food and clothes and comfort, and a visit to the pictures. Money is to make happy the lives of children. Money is for security, and for dreams, and for hopes, and for purposes. Money is for buying the fruits of the earth, of the land where you were born.
If we don't take responsibility for each other, it seems to me the future is going to be even bleaker.
When man does not have firm, calm lines on the horizon of his life- mountain and forest lines, as it were- then a man's innermost will becomes agitated, preoccupied, and wistful.
Enlightenment is like everyday consciousness but two inches above the ground.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.