QuoteProject
in the presence of extraordinary actuality, consciousness takes the place of imagination.
Wallace Stevens
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

When faced with remarkable experiences, our awareness and understanding replace mere fantasy.

Wallace Stevens suggests that in moments of profound truth or reality, our consciousness becomes more significant than imagination. This implies that extraordinary experiences can reshape our perception and understanding of the world, allowing us to engage with reality in a more meaningful way than simple imaginative thoughts can provide.

Themes

ConsciousnessImaginationExperienceRealityTruth

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about the impact of art on perception, this quote can highlight the power of real experiences.

More from Wallace Stevens

Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.
Wallace StevensRead
Most modern reproducers of life, even including the camera, really repudiate it. We gulp down evil, choke at good.
Wallace StevensRead
After one has abandoned a belief in God, poetry is that essence which takes its place as life's redemption.
Wallace StevensRead
Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Wallace StevensRead
LIGHT FROM WITHIN my friend, cancer got you damn it: you had it beat for seven years at least. how did it come back? Why all that pain. again. and you, such a fighter you fought me over and over with tears and words and promises. you fought for me with honesty and a light so bright it hurts my heart. sweet lorna. at peace now finally no more battles, just light from within a flickering candle in the dark burns with you.
Wallace StevensRead
Unfortunately there is nothing more inane than an Easter carol. It is a religious perversion of the activity of Spring in our blood.
Wallace StevensRead

Similar quotes

Judicial execution can never cancel or remove the atrocity it seeks to punish; it can only add a second atrocity to the original one ... So long as one sees killing as wrong there is no need to waste time with the deterrent argument, since it would be nonsense to try to prevent a theoretical evil in the future by perpetrating an actual one in the present.
Auberon WaughRead
Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority.
Walter LippmannRead
Jim Crow segregation was bipartisan. The refusal of women suffrage was bipartisan. The denial of the basic dignity of members of the LGBTQ community has long been bipartisan. The Three-Fifths Compromise was the creation of a punitive national unity at the expense of black people's basic humanity.
Raphael WarnockRead
How long do you remember that it is the Lord who is making you work? But then, by repeatedly analysing like that, you will come to a state when the ego will vanish and in its place the Lord will come in. Then you will be able to say with justice "Thou, Lord, art guarding all my actions from within." But, my friend, if the ego occupies all the space within your heart, where forsooth will there be room enough for the Lord to come in? The Lord is verily absent!
Swami VivekanandaRead
...I will not allow books to prove any thing." "But how shall we prove any thing?" "We never shall.
Jane AustenRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.