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About this quote

What does it mean?
The bread of the future is stone now, and we sleep by it forgetting the imaginary world except when we choose to play.
In plain terms
The future is hard stone now, and we forget the imaginary world.
What can you take from it?
Reality is often hard, while imagination is a choice.

Where it applies

  • coping with hardship
  • creative play
  • daily life

Putting it to work

  • imagining futures
  • writing poetry
  • reflecting on time

Questions to consider

  • Why do we forget the imagined?
  • What is the bread of time?

Another view

The metaphor of bread as stone is abstract and difficult to grasp.

More from Wallace Stevens

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  2. Begin, ephebe, by perceiving the idea Of this invention, this invented world, The inconceivable idea of the sun. You must become an ignorant man again And see …

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  3. What is beyond the cathedral, outside, Balances with nuptial song. So it is to sit and to balance things To and to and to the point of still, To say of one mas…

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