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About this quote

What does it mean?
Creating order in one's mind is a courageous act akin to nature's instincts.
In plain terms
Making up your own rules takes bravery like animals surviving in wild.
What can you take from it?
Asserting personal order requires courage and instinct.

Where it applies

  • leadership
  • personal discipline
  • survival

Putting it to work

  • goal setting
  • routine building
  • decision making

Questions to consider

  • What orders do you impose on your day?
  • Where do you need more courage?

Another view

Imposing order can ignore existing external realities.

More from Wallace Stevens

  1. Straight to the utmost crown of night he flew. The nothingness was a nakedness, a point Beyond which thought could not progress as thought. He had to choose. B…

    Permalink to quote #161
  2. But to impose is not To discover. To discover an order as of A season, to discover summer and know it, To discover winter and know it well, to find Not to impo…

    Permalink to quote #163
  3. The nothingness was a nakedness, a point, Beyond which fact could not progress as fact. Thereon the learning of the man conceived Once more night's pale illumi…

    Permalink to quote #160

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