As for me, I would rather be a worm in a wild apple than a son of man. But we are what we are, and we might remember not to hate any person, for all are vicious; And not to be astonished at any evil, all are deserved; And not to fear death; it is the only way to be cleansed.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the nature of existence and the acceptance of human flaws and mortality.
Robinson Jeffers articulates a preference for a humble existence, suggesting that even the lowliest creatures, like a worm in an apple, possess a more authentic life than a son of man burdened by societal expectations. He urges us to embrace our humanity, acknowledging that everyone has their flaws and that evil exists within us all, while also confronting the inevitability of death as a means of purification.
In practice
This quote can be shared in discussions about the human condition in philosophy classes.
Nature knows that people are a tide that swells and in time will ebb, and all their works dissolve ... As for us: We must uncenter our minds from ourselves. We must unhumanize our views a little and become confident as the rock and ocean that we are made from.
Does it matter whether you hate yourself? At least love your eyes that can see, your mind that can hear the music, the thunder of the wings.
Poetry is not a civilizer, rather the reverse, for great poetry appeals to the most primitive instincts.
I've changed my ways a little, I cannot now Run with you in the evenings along the shore, Except in a kind of dream, and you, if you dream a moment, You see me there.
You making haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.
Death's a fierce meadowlark: but to die having made / Something more equal to the centuries / Than muscle and bone, is mostly to shed weakness.
The Contessa was surely way ahead of her time, too, in believing that men were not only usless and idiotic, but downright dangerous. That idea wouldn't catch on big in her native country until the last three years of the Vietnam War.
Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive appearance of things.
Seeking out causes is a pastime of the mind. There is no duality of cause and effect. Everything is its own cause.
In our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds - that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.
To wonder about life is not something we learn; it is something we forget.
Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison. I am near, too near for him to dream of me.
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