Imagination applied to the whole world is vapid in…

“Imagination applied to the whole world is vapid in comparison to imagination applied to a detail.”

Wallace Stevens

About This Quote

This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation.

Imagining the whole world is shallow compared to focusing creative detail, which reveals deeper meaning.

In simple terms: Detail reveals deeper insight than broad imagination.

Key Takeaway

Pay attention to specifics for richer understanding.

Themes

art creativity focus detail

Mood

contemplative inspirational

Type

literary philosophical

When to use this quote

writing
visual arts
scientific observation

Key Concepts

aesthetic philosophy micro‑cosm perception

Questions to Reflect On

How does focusing on a small element change your view of the whole?
When is broad imagination more useful?

A Different Perspective

Over‑focus on detail can miss larger context.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

More by Wallace Stevens

Poet, patting more nonsense foamed From the sea, conceive for thecourts Of these academies, the diviner health Disclosed in common forms.

Wallace Stevens

The way through the world is more difficult to find than the way beyond it.

Wallace Stevens

The magnificent cause of being, The imagination, the one reality In this imagined world

Wallace Stevens

Music falls on the silence like a sense / A passion that we feel, not understand.

Wallace Stevens

The life of the city never lets you go, nor do you ever want it to.

Wallace Stevens

After a lustre of the moon, we say We have not the need of any paradise, We have not the need of any seducing…

Wallace Stevens

I am what is around me.

Wallace Stevens

“We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide…

Wallace Stevens

“Lunar Paraphrase" The moon is the mother of pathos and pity. When, at the wearier end of November, Her old light moves along the…

Wallace Stevens

Poetry is the scholar's art.

Wallace Stevens

“The stars are putting on their glittering belts, They throw around their shoulders cloaks that flash Like a great shadow's last embellishment”

wallace stevens

Unfortunately there is nothing more inane than an Easter carol. It is a religious perversion of the activity of Spring in our blood.

Wallace Stevens

The word is the making of the world

Wallace Stevens

A diary is more or less the work of a man of clay whose hands are clumsy and in whose eyes there is no…

Wallace Stevens

It is never the thing but the version of the thing.

Wallace Stevens

Explore all 352 Wallace Stevens quotes

More Comparison quotes

Bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Take what I cannot give: my heart, body, thoughts, time, abilities, money, health, strength,…

Elizabeth Prentiss

It is exactly in the repetition of the exercises that the education of the senses exists; not that the child shall know colors, forms…

Maria Montessori

Geometry, which should only obey Physics, when united with it sometimes commands it. If it happens that the question which we wish to examine…

Jean le Rond d'Alembert

I like to say that women are those who form life in their wombs - and this is a comparison I make - they…

Pope Francis

You are Insignificant. One of millions, neither special nor unique. I did not ask for this ignominy, and I resent the comparison. Fine. I…

N.K. Jemisin

President Obama's achievements and failures must be evaluated by comparison to those chief executives who have come before him and not be measured against…

David Garrow

Composing a piece of music is very feminine. It is sensitive, emotional, contemplative. By comparison, doing housework is positively masculine.

Barbara Kolb

I think the first person to call me 'Britain's Obama' was Martin Bright at the New Statesman. Harriet Harman made the comparison once at…

Chuka Umunna

The insolence of base minds in success is boundless; and would scarce admit of a comparison, did not they themselves furnish us with one…

Laurence Sterne

The wise man does not permit himself to set up even in his own mind any comparisons of his friends. His friendship is capable…

Charles Dudley Warner

It’s always going to be easy to live like others or other’s life, because creating or innovating something of own is always difficult in…

Anuj

The streets, at least in this part of town, seemed impossibly clean in comparison to London. The public telephones were unvandalised. For a London…

Clive James

It is only through contact and comparison that the relative value or worthlessness of the various cultural elements can be clearly and critically seen…

Hu Shih