Source: Out of Africa (1937)
Context: People who dream when they sleep at night know of a special kind of happiness which the world of the day holds not, a placid ecstasy, and ease of heart, that are like honey on the tongue. They also know that the real glory of dreams lies in their atmosphere of unlimited freedom. It is not the freedom of the dictator, who enforces his own will on the world, but the freedom of the artist, who has no will, who is free of will. The pleasure of the true dreamer does not lie in the substance of the dream, but in this: that there things happen without any interference from his side, and altogether outside his control. Great landscapes create themselves, long splendid views, rich and delicate colours, roads, houses, which he has never seen or heard of...
“Unlimited and absolute is the vision of him who sits at ease and watches, who walks in loneliness and dreams”
The Critic as Artist (1891), Part II
Context: It is to do nothing that the elect exist. Action is limited and relative. Unlimited and absolute is the vision of him who sits at ease and watches, who walks in loneliness and dreams.
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Oscar Wilde 812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900Related quotes
“Even loneliness is not absolute loneliness because the contents of the universe are in him.”
Source: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 121
“I hope to begin a new plan… not sitting down to local matter but walking and watching.”
The Life and letters of Samuel Palmer, Painter and Etcher (AH Palmer, London, 1892)
“I will walk till the water checks my path,
Then sit and watch the rising clouds.”
"Zhongnan Retreat" (终南别业)
Canto XIX, lines 79–81 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso
“Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.”