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Quote by Theodore Roethke

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Theodore Roethke
Theodore Roethke

Theodore Roethke was an American poet known for his deep emotions and rich imagination. His poetry often explores themes of human emotion and the natural world, enjoying great popularity among readers. more

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“Despairing of an aim, salvation or an ideal, we invent for ourselves the easiest solution: happiness. Here again we begin with utopia - the ideal of happiness - and end in achieved happiness, the highest stage of happiness. The same abreaction to integral happiness as to integral reality or freedom: these are all unbearable. In the end, it is the opposite form of misfortune, the victim ideology, that triumphs. Being incapable of accepting thought (the idea that the world thinks us, the intelligence of evil), we invent the easiest solution, the technical solution: Artificial Intelligence. The highest stage of intelligence: integral knowledge. This time the rejection will arise perhaps from a resistance on the part of things themselves to their digital transparency or from a failure of the system in the form of a major accident. Against all the sovereign hypotheses are ranged the easiest solutions. And all the easiest solutions lead to catastrophe.”

HappinessCatastropheUtopiaIntelligence Of EvilEasiest Solutions
Book:The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact
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“শোকের সঙ্গে সময়ের এক সূক্ষ্ম রেষারেষি আছে। তাদের মধ্যে এক চাপা লড়াই চলছে অবিরাম। এই দ্বৈরথের প্রথম দফায় শোকই জেতে, চকিত আঘাত হেনে সময়কে সে নিশ্চল করে দেয়। তারপর ধীরে ধীরে সময় বলবান হয়ে ওঠে, তার অদৃশ্য শরজালে হঠে যেতে থাকে শোক। ক্রমশ নির্জীব হয়ে পড়ে সে। তবে তাকে পুরোপুরি নিশ্চিহ্ন করার শক্তি বুঝি সময়েরও নেই। এক শীতল বিষন্নতা হয়ে সে টিকে থাকে বহুকাল। অনেকটা যেন মেরুপ্রভার মতো। ক্ষীণ দীপ্তি, অথচ কী তার অপার বিস্তার।”

TimeMourning
Book:কাছের মানুষ
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“For weeks, really, I could conjure him into being. I'd imagine him walking in, soaked in sweat, having finished mowing the lawn, and he'd try to hug me but i'd squirm out from his arms because even then sweat freaked me out. Or I'd be in my room, lying on my stomach, reading a book, and I'd look over at the closed door and imagine him opening it, and then he would be in the room with me, and I'd be looking up at him as he knelt down to kiss the top of my head. And then it became harder to summon him, to smell his smell, to feel him lifting me up. My father died suddenly, but also across the years. He was still dying, really—which meant I guess that he was still living, too.”

LossGriefMourning
Book:Turtles All the Way Down
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