Favorite Inspirational Quotes

“I Envy Not in Any Moods”

I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:

I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter’d by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth,
Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, what’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Dyer picks a few lines from this poem to support his essay on taking risks and failure. We’ll get back to that. He has some very good points but let’s look at the other parts first to see if there’s anything else from this poem.

Lord Tennyson, in the first stanza, talks about how he does not envy “the captive void of noble rage.” I’m not sure there’s anything noble about rage. However, he is right in that it is a void. Have you every experienced true rage? Not just getting angry but rage. It’s a red-tinged hole or void where you can see nothing but your rage. You can’t function in a rage…other than violently. It is a void best left untouched.

The next stanza talks about the beast that does whatever he wants regardless of whom it hurts because he has no conscience. Such an individual is indeed a beast and has no place in society. After all, what is society but a grouping of people who follow rules and strictures. The emphasis here is that the beast is just that, a beast, with whom no one would want to share anything. Never to know love or friendship or anything else that requires sharing with another.

Then there’s the opposite example back in the first stanza that is the linnet born in a cage who has never known what it is to be a free bird flying in the woods. Pretty much it is the direct opposite of the beast, letting the bars of someone else’s rules, beliefs and strictures bound its life. It is a creature that does not truly live as it never leaves the cage to know what real life could have been.

The third stanza talks about the one who never seeks love and marriage and thinks he is pretty lucky. Without having someone else in his life, he then lives a stagnated life. So many things that people accomplish is because of their families. So many of the adventures of life that you experience is because of your family.

Which leads to perhaps the most famous fourth stanza’s last two lines. Dyer says that these could just as easily mean it’s better to have acted and fallen than never to have acted at all which leads back to what most of his essay is about - risk and failure. This certainly applies to the linnet locked in a cage.

From here he goes on to talk about failure and has many very good things to say. What I liked most, however, was that failure is a judgment and should be replaced with “You cannot fail. You can only produce results.” That quote could lead to another whole post. I have added that to my collection of quotes and I read it every day. It has made an big impact upon the way I think, making trying things, risking things, a whole lot different in my mind.

Tags: self improvement