Drink your wine. Laugh from your gut. Burden your moments with thankfulness. Be as empty as you can be when that clock winds down. Spend your life. And if time is a river, may you leave a wake.
N.D. WilsonRead
Imagine a poem written with such enormous three-dimensional words that we had to invent a smaller word to reference each of the big ones; that we had to rewrite the whole thing in shorthand, smashing it into two dimensions, just to talk about it. Or don’t imagine it. Look outside. Human language is our attempt at navigating God’s language; it is us running between the lines of His epic, climbing on the vowels and building houses out of the consonants.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Language is a tool for understanding and expressing the profound intricacies of existence.
This quote by N.D. Wilson reflects on the limitations of human language in conveying the depth of divine or fundamental truths. It suggests that while we strive to articulate our experiences and understand the complexities of life through words, we often find ourselves simplifying or condensing those vast ideas into more manageable terms, akin to reducing a rich poem into shorthand. This metaphor highlights the expansive nature of reality and our persistent, albeit imperfect, endeavor to comprehend and communicate it.
Themes
LanguageExpressionCommunicationUnderstandingPhilosophyExistence
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of effective communication in our personal and professional lives.
More from N.D. Wilson
All quotes →The world is rated R, and no one is checking IDs. Do not try to make it G by imagining the shadows away. Do not try to hide your children from the world forever, but do not pretend there is no danger . Train them. Give them sharp eyes and bellies full of laughter. Make them dangerous. Make them yeast, and when they’ve grown, they will pollute the shadows.
N.D. WilsonRead
Similar quotes
Thousands of years ago, weren't we capable of building enormous structures like the pyramids? Weren't we capable of worshiping gods, weaving, making fire, finding lovers and wives, sending written messages? Of course we were. But although we've succeeded in replacing slaves with wage slaves, all the advances we've made have been in the field of science. Human beings are still asking the same questions as their ancestors. In short, they haven't evolved at all.
Paulo CoelhoRead
Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.
Stephen HawkingRead
God is Love, we are taught as children to believe. But when we first begin to get some inkling of how He loves us, we are repelled; it seems so cold, indeed, not love at all as we understand the word.
W. H. AudenRead
The crisis that the world finds itself in as it swings on the hinge of a new millennium is located in something deeper than particular ways of organizing political systems and economies.
Huston SmithRead
I think that there are real concerns that we have around whose life is important and why. So if the official story is, for example, somebody was running from the police, does their life matter?
Alicia GarzaRead
In fact, entertainment has taken the place of celebration in the present world. But entertainment is quite different from celebration; entertainment and celebration are never the same. In celebration you are a participant; in entertainment you are only a spectator. In entertainment you watch others playing for you. So while celebration is active, entertainment is passive. In celebration you dance, while in entertainment you watch someone dancing, for which you pay him.
RajneeshRead