But you can't plead with autumn. No. The midnight wind stalked through the woods, hooted to frighten you, swept everything away for the approaching winter, whirled the leaves. ("The North")
Interpretation
The quote expresses the inevitability of change and the passage of time, particularly how seasons transition from autumn to winter.
In this quote, Yevgeny Zamyatin reflects on the relentless nature of change and the inevitability of the cycles of life. Autumn, with its beauty and vibrancy, cannot be pleaded with to remain, as it must yield to the approaching winter. The midnight wind symbolizes the forces that drive change, reminding us that we cannot halt the progression of time or manipulate the seasons of our lives.
In practice
During a speech about personal growth, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of accepting change.
The knife is the most durable, immortal, the most genius thing that man created. The knife was the guillotine; the knife is the universal means of solving all knots; and along the blade of a knife lies the path of paradox - the single most worthy path of the fearless mind.
Accentuated plainness and accentuated vice ought to bring about harmony. Beauty lies in harmony, in style, whether it be the harmony of ugliness or beauty, vice or virtue.
The world is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy. Our symbol of faith is heresy...
The lilac branches are bowed under the weight of the flowers: blooming is hard, and the most important thing is - to bloom. (βA Story About The Most Important Thingβ)
A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading.
Knowledge, absolutely sure of its infallibility, is faith.
Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring this about?
The country should be more inclusive, not less inclusive, and over an infinite timeline, it becomes more inclusive. It doesn't always happen at once.
The path to relative economic, social and ecological sustainability is guaranteed to be littered with failures of every nature and scale. If we recognize them and learn from them, the transition will proceed faster and in more resource-efficient ways. If, on the other hand, we prefer the short-term comfort of burying our failures, or of blaming scapegoats, the transition will be significantly slowed, or could even be derailed completely.
Each situation has to be evaluated separately, for all are different. In general, I believe in non-violent direct action, which involve organizing large numbers of people, whereas too often violent uprisings are the product of a small group. If enough people are organized, violence can be minimized in bringing about social change.
Consider all of the possibilities for positive global progress if we utilized nonviolence as the central value of our culture, encompassing our law enforcement and labor practices, which currently include people in numerous nations working for inhumane wages in unhealthy conditions.
If it hadn't been for that march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, there would be no Barack Obama as President of the United States of America.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.