Time is a dream ... a destroying dream;_x000D_ _x000D_ It lays great cities in dust, it fills the seas;_x000D_ _x000D_ It covers the face of beauty, and tumbles walls.
Interpretation
Time is ephemeral and ultimately destructive, affecting everything from beauty to civilizations.
This quote reflects on the transient nature of time, suggesting that it has the power to erode beauty and topple great accomplishments, symbolized by cities and walls. Aiken emphasizes the relentless passage of time, which, despite being an intangible concept, leaves a tangible impact on the world around us.
In practice
In a lecture about the philosophy of time, this quote can illustrate the concept of impermanence.
One cricket said to another -_x000D_ _x000D_ come, let us be ridiculous, and say love!_x000D_ _x000D_ love love love love love_x000D_ _x000D_ let us be absurd, woman, and say hate!_x000D_ _x000D_ hate hate hate hate hate_x000D_ _x000D_ and then let us be angelic_x000D_ _x000D_ and say nothing.
Music I heard with you was more than music, and bread I broke with you was more than bread. Now that I am without you, all is desolate; all that was once so beautiful is dead.
Nothing is quite beautiful alone; nothing but is beautiful in the whole. A single object is only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal grace.
Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that that cannot be done.
Meditation is such a more substantial reality than what we normally take to be reality.
Posterity will surely be amazed, and I hope vastly amused, that such slipshod and unconvincing theorizing should have so easily captivated twentieth-century minds and been so widely and recklessly applied.
People like you should be stopped, Mr. Woodrow,' she mused aloud, with a puzzled shake of her wise head. 'You think you're solving the world's problems but actually you're the problem.
It is foolish to view realism and idealism as incompatible or to consider our power and wealth as encumbered by the demands of justice, morality, and conscience.
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