We must beware the revenge of the starved senses, the embittered animal in its prison.
Interpretation
This quote warns against neglecting our basic human needs and desires, suggesting that when we do, they can manifest in destructive ways.
J. B. Priestley's quote speaks to the importance of recognizing and addressing our fundamental senses and emotions. When these needs are starved or ignored, they can lead to a sense of anger and bitterness, much like an imprisoned animal that desires freedom. The quote serves as a reminder that we must nurture our senses and emotional well-being to prevent negative consequences in our lives.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-care, this quote could underscore the importance of emotional well-being.
But some of us are beginning to pull well away, in our irritation, from...the exquisite tasters, the vintage snobs, the three-star Michelin gourmets. There is, we feel, a decent area somewhere between boiled carrots and Beluga caviare, sour plonk and Chateau Lafitte, where we can take care of our gullets and bellies without worshipping them.
A novelist who writes nothing for 10 years finds his reputation rising. Because I keep on producing books they say there must be something wrong with this fellow.
Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries.
There is romance, the genuine glinting stuff, in typewriters, and not merely in their development from clumsy giants into agile dwarfs, but in the history of their manufacture, which is filled with raids, battles, lonely pioneers, great gambles, hope, fear, despair, triumph. If some of our novels could be written by the typewriters instead of on them, how much better they would be.
We plan, we toil, we suffer - in the hope of what? A camel-load of idol's eyes? The title deeds of Radio City? The empire of Asia? A trip to the moon? No, no, no, no. Simply to wake just in time to smell coffee and bacon and eggs.
No matter how piercing and appalling his insights, the desolation_x000D_ creeping over his outer world, the lurid lights and shadows of his inner_x000D_ world, the writer must live with hope, work in faith
The pornographers are not a deviation from the norm. Their presence in the mainstream shouldn't be surprising, because they represent mainstream values: The logic of domination and subordination that is central to patriarchy, hyper-patriotic nationalism, white supremacy, and a predatory corporate capitalism.
I don't need anyone to rectify my existence. The most profound relationship we will ever have is the one with ourselves.
Upon my word," said Dantes, "you make me shudder. Is the world filled with tigers and crocodiles?" "Yes; and remember that two legged tigers and crocodiles are more dangerous than the others.
Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone.
You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
What is meaningful cannot in fact be isolatedβ¦. We achieve understanding within a circular movement from particular facts to the whole that includes them and back again from the whole thus reached to the particular significant facts.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.