Very soon the heavens presented an extraordinary appearance, for all thestars directly behind me were now deep red, while those directly aheadwere violet. Rubies lay behind me, amethysts ahead of me.
Olaf Stapledon
For the former, activity, any kind of activity, was an end in itself; for the latter, activity was but a progress toward the true end, which was rest, and peace of mind. Action was to be undertaken only when equilibrium was disturbed.
progress philosophy mind action peace rest true kind end
The truth of the matter was something much more subtle and tremendous than any plain physical miracle could ever be. But never mind that. The important thing was that, when I did see the stars (riotously darting in all directions according to the caprice of their own wild natures, yet in every movement confirming the law), the whole tangled horror that had tormented me finally presented itself to me in its truth and beautiful shape. And I knew that the first, blind stage of my childhood had ended.
miracles truth beauty childhood stars law horror
Philosophy is an amazing tissue of really fine thinking and incredible, puerile mistakes. It's like one of those rubber 'bones' they give dogs to chew, damned good for the mind's teeth, but as food - no bloody good at all.
philosophy
Sitting there on the heather, on our planetary grain, I shrank from theabysses that opened up on every side, and in the future. The silentdarkness, the featureless unknown, were more dread than all the terrorsthat imagination had mustered. Peering, the mind could see nothing sure, nothing in all human experience to be grasped as certain, exceptuncertainty itself; nothing but obscurity gendered by a thick haze oftheories. Man's science was a mere mist of numbers; his philosophy but afog of words. His very perception of this rocky grain and all itswonders was but a shifting and a lying apparition. Even oneself, thatseeming-central fact, was a mere phantom, so deceptive, that the mosthonest of men must question his own honesty, so insubstantial that hemust even doubt his very existence.
philosophy metaphysics
There is much in this vision that will remind you of your mystics; yet between them and us there is far more difference than similarity, in respect both of the matter and the manner of our thought. For while they are confident that the cosmos is perfect, we are sure only that it is very beautiful. While they pass to their conclusion without the aid of intellect, we have used that staff every step of the way. Thus, even when in respect of conclusions we agree with your mystics rather than your plodding intellectuals, in respect of method we applaud most your intellectuals; for they scorned to deceive themselves with comfortable fantasies.
philosophy science religion thought
Is the beauty of the Whole really enhanced by our agony? And is the Whole really beautiful? And what is beauty? Throughout all his existence man has been striving to hear the music of the spheres, and has seemed to himself once and again to catch some phrase of it, or even a hint of the whole form of it. Yet he can never be sure that he has truly heard it, nor even that there is any such perfect music at all to be heard. Inevitably so, for if it exists, it is not for him in his littleness. But one thing is certain. Man himself, at the very least, is music, a brave theme that makes music also of its vast accompaniment, its matrix of storms and stars. Man himself in his degree is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of things. It is very good to have been man. And so we may go forward together with laughter in our hearts, and peace, thankful for the past, and for our own courage. For we shall make after all a fair conclusion to this brief music that is man.
philosophy science-fiction
They were a remarkable company, each one of them a unique person, yet characterized to some extent by his particular national type. And all were distinctively scientists of the period. Formerly this would have implied a rather uncritical leaning towards materialism, and an affectation of cynicism; but by now it was fashionable to profess an equally uncritical belief that all natural phenomena were manifestations of the cosmic mind. In both periods, when a man passed beyond the sphere of his own serious scientific work he chose his beliefs irresponsibly, according to his taste, much as he chose his recreation or his food.
science religion
The older Puritans had trampled down all fleshly impulses; these newer Puritans trampled no less self-righteously upon the spiritual cravings. But in the increasingly spiritistic inclination of physics itself, Behaviorism and Fundamentalism had found a meeting place. Since the ultimate stuff of the physical universe was now said to be multitudinous and arbitrary quanta of the activity spirits, how easy was it for the materialistic and the spiritistic to agree? At heart, indeed, they were never very far apart in mood, though opposed in doctrine. The real cleavage was between the truly spiritual view on the one hand, and the spiritistic and materialistic on the other. Thus the most materialistic of Christian sects and the most doctrinaire of scientific sects were not long in finding a formula to express their unity, their denial of all those finer capacities which had emerged to be the spirit of man.
science
My dear, it is a great strength to have faced the worst and to have *felt* it a feature of beauty. Nothing ever after can shake one.
strength beauty worst
Men endured so much for war, but for peace they dared nothing.
peace war
We have no government and no laws, if by law is meant a stereotyped convention supported by force, and not to be altered without the aid of cumbersome machinery.
government
No visiting angel, or explorer from another planet could have guessed that this bland orb teemed with vermin, with world-mastering, self-torturing, incipiently angelic beasts.
man earth
The future needed service, not pity, not piety; but in the past lay darkness, confusion, waste, and all the cramped primitive minds, bewildered, torturing one another in their stupidity, yet one and all in some unique manner, beautiful.
man human-condition
In the tide of these wild thoughts we checked our fancy, rememberingthat only on the rare grains called planets can life gain foothold, andthat all this wealth of restless jewels was but a waste of fire.
life stars
Showing 1 to 15 of 16 results
You must log in to post a comment.
There are no comments yet.