Science is history arranged according to the superstition and taste of the moment. The vocabulary of scholars has no wit, no salt. These heavy tomes have no soul, they are filled with distress.
Blaise CendrarsRead
Only a soul full of despair can ever attain serenity and, to be in despair, you must have loved a good deal and still love the world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Despair deepens one's understanding and appreciation of life after experiencing love and loss.
This quote suggests that true serenity comes from a deep understanding of sorrow and despair, which can only be fully appreciated by someone who has loved deeply and lost. The experience of love often brings joy, but it can also lead to profound heartache, and it is through this duality of existence that one can achieve a genuine state of peace and acceptance with the world.
Themes
DespairSerenityLoveSorrowUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
During a self-reflection meeting, one might say this quote to emphasize the complexity of human emotions.
More from Blaise Cendrars
All quotes βMy poor life This shawl Frayed on strongboxes full of gold I roll along with Dream And smoke And the only flame in the universe
Blaise CendrarsRead
Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness falsifies everything, whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes.
Blaise CendrarsRead
I'm not an extraordinary worker, I'm an extraordinary daydreamer. I exceed all my fantasies-even that of writing.
Blaise CendrarsRead
One's life, from being an exterior thing, grows inwards. Its intensity stays the same; and, d'you know, it's most mysterious, the corners in which the joy of living can sometimes hide away.
Blaise CendrarsRead
Similar quotes
He who walks in the middle of the roads gets hit from both sides.
George P. ShultzRead
Genius is rare because the means of becoming one have not been available
Victor HugoRead
It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean.
John LockeRead
To succeed in the game of power, you have to master your emotions. But even if you succeed in gaining such self-control, you can never control the temperamental dispositions of those around you. And this presents a great danger.
Robert GreeneRead
One man's word is no man's word; we should quietly hear both sides.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
Rather than going after our walls and barriers with a sledgehammer, we pay attention to them. With gentleness and honesty, we move closer to those walls. We touch them and smell them and get to know them well. We begin a process of acknowledging our aversions and our cravings. We become familiar with the strategies and beliefs we use to build the walls: What are the stories I tell myself? What repels me and what attracts me? We start to get curious about whatβs going on.
Pema ChodronRead