Vastness Quotes - page 4
What do we know about the world unseen? What reasonings, what curiosity, what misgivings there have been concerning that impenetrable mystery! Out of this mystery and vagueness and vastness comes the human form of the Divine Redeemer. He assures us that there is an unmixed and endless life, and that all we have to do to secure it is, to trust ourselves to Him who came to declare it and to confer it.
William Adams
At all costs try to avoid granting yourself the status of the victim... No matter how abominable your condition may be, try not to blame anything or anybody: history, the state, superiors, race, parents, the phase of the moon, childhood, toilet training, etc. The menu is vast and tedious, and this vastness and tedium alone should be offensive enough to set one's intelligence against choosing from it. The moment that you place blame somewhere, you undermine your resolve to change anything... // "Speech at the stadium, 18 December 1988"
Joseph Brodsky
Men go forth to marvel at the height of mountains, and the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the orbits of the stars, and yet they neglect to marvel at themselves. Variant: Men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, and pass themselves by.
Augustine of Hippo
With This Bridge comenzado a salir de las sombras; hemos comenzado a reventar rutina costumbres opresivas y a aventar los tabues; hemos comenzado a acarrear con orgullo la tarea de deshelar corazones y cambiar conciencias (we have begun to come out of the shadows; we have begun to break with routines and oppressive customs and to discard taboos; we have commenced to carry with pride the task of thawing hearts and changing consciousness). Mujeres, a no dejar que el peligro del viaje y la inmensidad del territorio nos asuste-a mirar hacia adelante y a abrir paso en el monte (Women, let's not let the danger of the journey and the vastness of the territory scare us-let's look forward and open paths in these woods). Caminante, no hay puentes, se hacen puentes al andar (Voyager, there are no bridges, one builds them as one walks).
Gloria E. Anzaldúa
I do not practise religion in accordance with the sacred rites. I have made mysterious Nature my religion. I do not believe that a man is any nearer to God for being clad in priestly garments, nor that one place in a town is better adapted to meditation than another. When I gaze at a sunset sky and spend hours contemplating its marvelous ever-changing beauty, an extraordinary emotion overwhelms me. Nature in all its vastness is truthfully reflected in my sincere though feeble soul. Around me are the trees stretching up their branches to the skies, the perfumed flowers gladdening the meadow, the gentle grass-carpetted earth, ... and my hands unconsciously assume an attitude of adoration. ... To feel the supreme and moving beauty of the spectacle to which Nature invites her ephemeral guests! ... that is what I call prayer.
Claude Debussy
I feel in my sinews
The spreading of shadows
Converging together
With a shiver
And in solitary vigil
After flights triumphal
My head rise
From this scythe
Through a clean rupture
That serves to dissever
The ancient disharmony
With the body
As drunk from fasting
It persists in following
With a haggard bound
Its gaze profound
Up where the frozen
Absolute has chosen
That nothing shall measure
Its vastness, O glacier
But according to a ritual
Illumined by the principle
That chose my consecration
It extends a salutation.
Stéphane Mallarmé
