This is an artifact and that was a relic. This is alive in the now, whereas that merely remained.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- An artifact exists now while a relic is just a remnant of the past.
- In plain terms
- This object lives now but that one only remains from before.
- What can you take from it?
- Presence distinguishes artifacts from relics.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What makes an object alive?
- Is the past less real than the present?
Another view
The distinction relies on subjective definitions of life.
More from Philip Kindred Dick
Little kids are that way; they feel if their parents aren't watching what they do then what they do isn't real.
Permalink to quote #18 Life is short. Art, or something not life, is long, stretching out endless, like concrete worm. Flat, white, unsmoothed by any passage over or across it. Here …
Permalink to quote #20 Can anyone alter fate? All of us combined...or one great figure...or someone strategically placed, who happens to be in the right spot. Chance. Accident. And o…
Permalink to quote #17
Related quotes
We live, but a world has passed away With the years that perished to make us men.
William Dean HowellsWilliam Dean Howells quote #1 An ink bottle, which now seems impossibly quaint, was still thinkable as a symbol in 1970.
Jonathan FranzenJonathan Franzen quote #2 There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew that cultures decay, and life's end is death.
Robinson JeffersRobinson Jeffers quote #12