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. (“A Story About The Most Important Thing”)
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.
The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.
To be anti-racist you have to be actively a part of dismantling the systems that surround you and the systems that you benefit from.
There’s no need for us to be held back by the past or how things have been so far. The important thing is what seeds we are sowing now for the future.
After spending three or four years interacting with the Bush administration, I realized they were not taking any actions to deal with climate change. So, I decided to give one talk, and then it snowballed into another talk and eventually to even protesting and getting arrested.
Every day, we hear of civilians being killed and wounded in violation of the basic rules of international humanitarian law and with total impunity. Instability is spreading. Suffering is growing. No country can remain untouched.
I'm only interested in people engaged in a project of self-transformation.
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