QuoteProject
If you're in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark.
Haruki Murakami
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

In times of despair or confusion, patience and stillness can lead to eventual clarity.

This quote by Haruki Murakami emphasizes the importance of waiting and allowing oneself to adapt to difficult situations. When faced with darkness or uncertainty, rather than rushing or panicking, one should take a moment to remain still and give themselves time to adjust, ultimately leading to greater understanding and insight.

Themes

PatienceClarityDarknessStillnessAdaptation

In practice

Example use cases

During a tough time at work, this quote could remind colleagues to remain calm and wait for a solution.

More from Haruki Murakami

You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.
Haruki MurakamiRead
They take the circuits out of people’s brains that make it possible for them to think for themselves. Their world is like the one that George Orwell depicted in his novel. I’m sure you realize that there are plenty of people who are looking for exactly that kind of brain death. It makes life a lot easier. You don’t have to think about difficult things, just shut up and do what your superiors tell you to do.
Haruki MurakamiRead
Memories and thoughts age, just as people do. But certain thoughts can never age, and certain memories can never fade.
Haruki MurakamiRead
I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.
Haruki MurakamiRead
Everybody burns out in this world; amateur, pro, it doesn't matter, they all burn out, they all get hurt, the OK guys and the not-OK guys both. That's why everybody takes out a little insurance. I've got some too, here at the bottom of the heap. That way, you manage to survive if you burn out. If you're all by yourself and don't belong anywhere, you go down once, and you're out. Finished.
Haruki MurakamiRead
Life is so uncertain: you never know what could happen. One way to deal with that is to keep your pajamas washed.
Haruki MurakamiRead

Similar quotes

From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
See the hand that nursed the serpent. The fine hasped pipes of her fingerbones. The skin bewenned and speckled. The veins are milkblue and bulby. A thin gold ring set with diamonds. That raised the once child's heart of her to agonies of passion before I was. Here is the anguish of mortality. Hopes wrecked, love sundered. See the mother sorrowing. How everything that I was warned of's come to pass.
Cormac MccarthyRead
Bring forward what is true, Write it so that it is clear, Defend it to your last breath!
Ludwig BoltzmannRead
Be faithful and true of word; let thy walk be plain and lowly: thou wilt get on, though in savage land. If thy words be not faithful and true, thy walk plain and lowly, wilt thou get on, though in thine own home? Standing, see these words ranged before thee; driving, see them written upon the yoke. Then thou wilt get on.
ConfuciusRead
For all things difficult to acquire, the intelligent man works with perseverance.
LaoziRead
Refrain from asking what going to happen tomorrow, and everyday that fortune grants you, count as gain.
HoraceRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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