..by the time we understand the pattern we are in, the definition we are making for ourselves, it's too late to break out of the box. We can only live in terms of the definition, like the prisoner in the cage in which he cannot lie or stand or sit, hung up in justice to be viewed by the populace. Yet the definition we have made of ourselves is ourselves. To break out of it, we must make a new self. But how can the self make a new self when the selfness which it is, is the only substance from which the new self can be made? . Robert Penn Warren
About This Quote

The prisoner, in the cage, cannot lie or stand or sit because he is being watched. He is being watched by the people who have put him there and they will not let him move. If he moves, he must be punished. In other words, he cannot lie freely because he is being watched.

When we are imprisoned by our selves, we think it is only those who watch us that can see us as we are. We think it is only those who watch us that can see our thoughts, our actions. If we could only "break out of the box" of selfness which puts us in prison, we would be free.

But how can we break out of this cage when the only substance from which the new self could be made is selfness itself? To break out of the cage, we must create a new self with a new definition.

Source: All The Kings Men

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More Quotes By Robert Penn Warren
  1. Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something( All The King's Men)
  2. Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history is the big myth we live, and in our living, constantly remake.
  3. The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful.
  4. BeautyIs the fume-track of necessity. This thought Is therapeutic. If, after several Applications, you do not find Relief, consult your family physician
  5. And the testicles of the fathers hang down like old lace
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