Never such innocence, Never before or since, As changed itself to past Without a word--the men Leaving the gardens tidy, The thousands of marriages Lasting a little while longer: Never such innocence again.
Philip LarkinRead
Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, and don't have any kids yourself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the transmission of suffering and negativity through generations, suggesting the importance of escaping this cycle.
Philip Larkin's quote poignantly addresses the concept of inherited suffering, illustrating how one generation's misery can accumulate and deepen in subsequent generations, much like the gradual erosion of a coastal shelf. It offers a stark warning to consider avoiding the perpetuation of this cycle by choosing not to have children, emphasizing the desire to break free from the burden of inherited pain and hardship.
Themes
MiseryInheritanceSufferingGenerationsParenthood
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion about emotional health and family dynamics.
More from Philip Larkin
All quotes βUncontradicting solitude Supports me on its giant palm; And like a sea-anemone Or simple snail, there cautiously Unfolds, emerges, what I am.
Philip LarkinRead
Saki says that youth is like hors d'oeuvres: you are so busy thinking of the next courses you don't notice it. When you've had them, you wish you'd had more hors d'oeuvres.
Philip LarkinRead
Above all, though, children are linked to adults by the simple fact that they are in process of turning into them. For this they may be forgiven much. Children are bound to be inferior to adults, or there is no incentive to grow up.
Philip LarkinRead
Originality is being different from oneself, not others.
Philip LarkinRead
I can't understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems: It's like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.
Philip LarkinRead
Similar quotes
If we hold tightly to anything given to us unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used we stunt the growth of the soul. What God gives us is not necessarily "ours" but only ours to offer back to him, ours to relinguish, ours to lose, ours to let go of, if we want to be our true selves. Many deaths must go into reaching our maturity in Christ, many letting goes.
Elisabeth ElliotRead
He saw a lawyer killing a viper on a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind of Cain and his brother Abel.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
You must make your choice: either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
C. S. LewisRead
The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.
Joseph BrodskyRead
I take a grave view of the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy
A. J. LieblingRead
My objection to the death penalty is based on the idea that this is a democracy, and in a democracy the government is me, and if the government kills somebody then I'm killing somebody.
Steve EarleRead