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What is an imagination for if not to enable you to peep at life through other people’s eyes?
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“What is an imagination for if not to enable you to peep at life through other people’s eyes?”

L. M. Montgomery

Source
Anne of Avonlea
Date
1909
Meaning

Meaning of “What is an imagination for if not to…”

Anne treats imagination as a tool for perspective-taking, using it to understand another person’s circumstances instead of remaining confined to her own viewpoint.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Anne of Avonlea, Project Gutenberg #47. Anne speaks to Diana during their conversation about Diana’s engagement; the line is fictional dialogue connecting imagination with sympathetic understanding.

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Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

DeepFriendshipShortThought-Provoking Quotes That Invite ReflectionUnderstandingEmpathyImaginationPerspective
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Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure.
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“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure.”

Jane Austen · Emma · 1815
Voice: Narrator voice · Narrator
Meaning & context

Austen observes that even sincere accounts can contain omission, disguise, or misunderstanding, which makes careful listening and humility important in judging what people say.

Source details

Emma, Volume III, Chapter XIII, scan-backed 1816 John Murray first edition on Wikisource. The narrator observes that complete truth seldom belongs to any human disclosure while explaining that even the Emma–Knightley understanding contains mistaken conduct alongside genuine feeling.

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To define is to limit.
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“To define is to limit.”

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray — 1891 edition · 1891
Voice: Fictional character · Lord Henry Wotton
Meaning & context

Definitions clarify ideas but can also narrow them, especially when a label is treated as the complete reality of a person or experience.

Source details

The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 edition, Chapter 17; Lord Henry answers the Duchess of Monmouth’s question “What are you?” with “To define is to limit.”

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My friend, I am not what I seem.
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“My friend, I am not what I seem.”

Kahlil Gibran · The Madman · 1918
Meaning & context

The outward persona is not treated as the whole self, reminding readers that appearances and social roles can conceal a much larger private inner life.

Source details

The Madman, “My Friend”; the speaker contrasts the visible self with the quieter self that remains inaccessible.

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Time makes more converts than reason.
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“Time makes more converts than reason.”

Thomas Paine · Common Sense · 1776
Meaning & context

Ideas that initially provoke resistance can become easier to accept as experience changes what people consider normal or possible.

Source details

Common Sense (1776), Introduction. The represented wording is verified in Project Gutenberg #147 and the validated scan-backed Wikisource 1776 sixth-edition transcription; Paine follows his warning that custom can make an error look right by observing that time often changes opinion where argument initially does not.

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The universe is wider than our views of it.
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“The universe is wider than our views of it.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden · 1854
Meaning & context

Reality exceeds any one viewpoint, so confidence in a perspective should leave room for what has not yet been seen.

Source details

Walden, Conclusion; Thoreau uses the sentence while arguing that familiar human views do not exhaust reality.

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Nothing is wretched, but thinking makes it so.
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“Nothing is wretched, but thinking makes it so.”

Boethius · The Consolation of Philosophy · c. 524
Meaning & context

Misfortune and judgment are separated: external circumstances can be painful, but the interpretation attached to them strongly influences whether a life is experienced as wholly ruined.

Source details

The Consolation of Philosophy, Book II, Chapter IV, H. R. James translation (Elliot Stock, 1897), printed page 60 in Project Gutenberg #14328. The retained catalog wording ‘Nothing is wretched, but thinking makes it so.’ is a frozen clause extract from James’s longer sentence beginning ‘So true is it that...’ in Lady Philosophy’s argument about Fortune, judgment and the instability of external circumstances. It remains late-antique philosophical consolation mediated by translation, not modern cognitive-science or clinical mental-health evidence.