If one considered life as a simple loan, one would perhaps be less exacting. We possess actually nothing; everything goes through us.

Meaning of the quote

This quote suggests that we should not be too demanding or expect too much from life, because we don't really own or possess anything in the end. Everything in our lives is just passing through us, like a loan that we have to return. The artist is saying that if we remember this, we might be less stressed or disappointed about the things we think we own or control. The main idea is that we shouldn't take life too seriously, since nothing really belongs to us permanently.

About Eugene Delacroix

Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix was a French Romantic artist who was regarded as the leader of the French Romantic school.
In contrast to the Neoclassical perfectionism of his chief rival Ingres, Delacroix took for his inspiration the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance, with an attendant emphasis on colour and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modelled form.

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