I love this quote from The Count of Monte Cristo, when the younger prisoner (Edmond Dantes) asks the older prisoner (a priest) a very thought-provoking question:
"I was reflecting, in the first place," replied Dantes, "upon the enormous degree of intelligence and ability you must have employed to reach the high perfection to which you have attained;--if you thus surpass all mankind while but a prisoner, what would you not have accomplished free?"
"Possibly nothing at all;--the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; it needs trouble and difficulty and danger to hollow out various mysterious and hidden mines of human intelligence. Pressure is required, you know, to ignite powder: captivity has collected into one single focus all the floating faculties of my mind; they have come into close contact in the narrow space in which they have been wedged, and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced--from electricity comes the lightning, from whose flash we have light amid our greatest darkness."
2 comments:
This is a wonderful quote. Thanks for sharing, Torts. For some odd reason I've been drawn to books concerning solitary confinement (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Papillon, Count of MC, Man's Search for Meaning, Star Rover by Jack London, Convicted in the Womb by Upchurch, etc.I guess many people feel they are incarcerated in their own mind in many ways.
Wow. and wow. Love it. and sooo true
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