Many I believe will wonder at this juxtaposition, not seeing that he is like Spinoza, or that he holds the same conspicuous position in art as Spinoza in science. Without destroying the balance of the Speech, I could only suggest my reason. There is now another reason why I should say no more. During these fifteen years the attention to Spinoza, awakened by Jacobi's writings and continued by many later influences, which was then somewhat marked, has relaxed. Novalis also has again become unknown to many. At that time, however, these examples seemed significant and important. Many coquetted in insipid poetry with religion, believing they were akin to the profound Novalis, just as there were advocates enough of the All in the One taken for followers of Spinoza who were equally distant from their original.
Baruch SpinozaRelated topics
art attention believe enough juxtaposition later now position reason religion science seeing should significant somewhat speech take unknown wonder yearsRelated quotes
Let us imagine that the aboriginal-original human specimen was one of two brother apes, A and B; they were alike in every respect; both were animal space-binders; but something strange happened to B; he became the first time-binder, a human. ... He had thus a new faculty, he belonged to a new dimension; but, of course, he did not realize it; and because he had this new capacity he was able to analyze his brother "A"; he observed "A is my brother; he is an animal; but he is my brother; therefore, I AM AN ANIMAL." This fatal first conclusion, reached by false analogy, by neglecting a fact, has been the chief source of human woe for half a million years and it still survives. ... He [then] said to himself, "If I am an animal there is also in me something higher, a spark of some thing supernatural."
Alfred Korzybski
If Christ were to walk in this world today, do you know what would happen to Him? He would be placed in a mental institution and given psycho-therapy, just as would His Saints. The world would crucify Him today just as it did 2000 years ago, for the world has not learned a thing, except more devious forms of hypocrisy. And what would happen if, in one of my classes at the university, I would one day tell my students that all the learning of this world is of no importance beside the duty of worshipping God, accepting the God-man who died for our sins, and preparing for the life of the world to come? They would probably laugh at me, and the university officials, if they found out, would fire me-for it is against the law to preach the Truth in our universities. We say that we live in a Christian society, but we do not: we live in a society.
Seraphim Rose
(Continued) The ironic thing is that my original goal in life was to be in a famous band, tour the world and sell millions of albums. Although that didn't quite happen, I got something else just as gratifying. Instead of being in a famous band, I gained some fame in the industry as a game composer. Instead of touring the world, I receive fan mail from around the world. Instead of selling millions of albums, my music is on millions of games! And I sell enough of my own albums that allows me to keep releasing them. So in a different way, I kind of got what I wanted after all. And I'm more than happy with that. The most fulfilling part of it is that I feel I contributed something that mattered to a significant number of people, and more importantly, I got to be a part of projects that mattered a lot to my life personally, like Star Wars!
Frank Klepacki
As I conclude I reflect on my childhood experience when I would visit a stream next to our home to fetch water for my mother. I would drink water straight from the stream. Playing among the arrowroot leaves I tried in vain to pick up the strands of frogs' eggs, believing they were beads. But every time I put my little fingers under them they would break. Later, I saw thousands of tadpoles: black, energetic and wriggling through the clear water against the background of the brown earth. This is the world I inherited from my parents. Today, over 50 years later, the stream has dried up, women walk long distances for water, which is not always clean, and children will never know what they have lost. The challenge is to restore the home of the tadpoles and give back to our children a world of beauty and wonder.
Wangari Maathai
Humans are proud of themselves. The guiding principle of the modern age is "Man is the measure of all things." And our bodies have excited physiologists and philosophers to a profound awe of the basic mammalian design. But the history of the dinosaurs should teach us some humility... If our fundamental mammalian mode of adaptation was superior to the dinosaurs', then history should record the meteoric rise of the mammals and the eclipse of the dinosaurs. Our own Class Mammalia did not seize the dominant position in life on land. Instead, the mammal clan was but one of many separate evolutionary families that succeeded as species only by taking refuge in small body size during the Age of Dinosaurs. As long as there were dinosaurs, a full 130 million years, remember, the warm-blooded league of furry mammals produced no species bigger than a cat.
Robert T. Bakker