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Despite all my rational efforts; all the maths and research - there is a speck of insight that only poetry and literature can reach. It's irritating and comforting at the same time.


Thank you for this. This is exactly how I felt but could not articulate.


Thanks, that makes me happy.

You might also like this phrase I adore, which expresses the same sentiment in a more general way:

"And the words slide into the slots ordained by syntax, and glitter as with atmospheric dust with those impurities which we call meaning."

Of course, Anthony Burgess is much more of a poet than I am.


All the world’s combined poetry and literature won’t get you to the moon, or solve the world’s energy crisis. It’s all a bunch of tosh - don’t stop building.


All the mathematics in the world can't tell you why you would want to go to the moon.


I never said that poetry gets you to the moon.

But when you’re there - how do you cope with the heat death of the universe, or the loss of your close ones, or how do you justify being there? How do you find joy in your mornings, and how do you empathise with others, the living and the once-living?


No, but it might make you just as happy or fulfilled.


To get to the moon, you first have to want to get to the moon. Literature excels at disseminating dreams and desires.




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