Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch. 3
Context: Would I if I could by pushing a button would I kill five thousand Chinamen if I could save my brother from anything. Well I was very fond of my brother and I could completely imagine his suffering and I replied that five thousand Chinamen were something I could not imagine and so it was not interesting.
One has to remember that about imagination, that is when the world gets dull when everybody does not know what they can or what they cannot really imagine.
“The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That's what poetry does. By poetry I mean the imagining of what has been lost and what can be found—the imagining of who we are and the slow realization of it.”
As quoted in C. F. Main & Peter J. Seng, Poems (Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1973), p. 3
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Allen Ginsberg 76
American poet 1926–1997Related quotes
When the Ayatollah Dictates Poetry http://www.aawsat.net/2015/07/article55344336/when-the-ayatollah-dictates-poetry, Ashraq Al-Awsat (Jul 11, 2015).
“It is not often that the real world conjures worse than what we can imagine.”
Source: Eona: The Last Dragoneye
“What can be imagined—
—need never be lost.”
Part Nine “Into the Gyre”, Chapter iii “The Miracle of the Loom” (p. 429; catchphrase frequently repeated)
(1987), BOOK TWO: THE FUGUE
Source: Weaveworld
“Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination.”
As quoted in Advances in Biochemical Psychopharmacology, Vol. 25 (1980), p. 3
“I imagine that a hero is a man who does what he can. The others do not do it.”
Gottfried to Jean-Christophe. Part 3: Ada
Variant translation: A hero is one who does what he can. The others don't.
As quoted in A Book of French Quotations (1963) by Norbert Guterman, p. 365
Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Youth (1904)
Context: You are a vain fellow. You want to be a hero. That is why you do such silly things. A hero!... I don't quite know what that is: but, you see, I imagine that a hero is a man who does what he can. The others do not do it.
“We can only know what we can truly imagine. Finally what we see comes from ourselves.”
Source: Woman on the Edge of Time