“There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance.”
Robert Browning. (1903)
Context: One of the deepest and strangest of all human moods is the mood which will suddenly strike us perhaps in a garden at night, or deep in sloping meadows, the feeling that every flower and leaf has just uttered something stupendously direct and important, and that we have by a prodigy of imbecility not heard or understood it. There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance.
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G. K. Chesterton 229
English mystery novelist and Christian apologist 1874–1936Related quotes
"Wishful Thinking – Or Hopeful Dreaming?" (1968)
Quote from An interview with William Baziotes, eds. P. Franks and M. White, Perspective no. 2, Hunter College New York (1956-57), pp. 27, 29-30
1950s
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Priest
“Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart..”
“Ignorance is not bliss. Bliss is knowing the full meaning of what you have been given.”
Source: Two Boys Kissing
O único sentido oculto das coisas
É elas não terem sentido oculto nenhum,
É mais estranho do que todas as estranhezas
E do que os sonhos de todos os poetas
E os pensamentos de todos os filósofos,
Que as coisas sejam realmente o que parecem ser
E não haja nada que compreender.
Sim, eis o que os meus sentidos aprenderam sozinhos:—
As coisas não têm significação: têm existência.
As coisas são o único sentido oculto das coisas.
Alberto Caeiro (heteronym), O Guardador de Rebanhos ("The Keeper of Sheep"), XXXIX, trans. Richard Zenith.