#permanence

Above all human existence requires stability, the permanence of things. The result is an ambivalence with respect to all great and violent expenditure of strength; such an expenditure, whether in nature or in man, represents the strongest possible threat. The feelings of admiration and of ecstasy induced by them thus mean that we are concerned to admire them from afar. The sun corresponds to that prudent concern. It is all radiance gigantic loss of heat and light, flame, explosion; but remote from men, who can enjoy in safety and quiet the fruits of this cataclysm. To earth belongs the solidity which sustains houses of stone and the steps of men (at least on its surface, for buried within the depths of the earth is the incandescence of lava). ↗

— Georges Bataille

#permanence #power #stability #men

Science has sometimes been said to be opposed to faith, and inconsistent with it. But all science, in fact, rests on a basis of faith, for it assumes the permanence and uniformity of natural laws - a thing which can never be demonstrated. ↗

— Tryon Edwards

#basis #been #demonstrated #fact #faith

Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment. (From 'Fukan zazengi') ↗

— Dogen Zenji

#impermanence #zen #life

I don't think that jazz, as any kind of an art form, has any permanence attached to it, apart from the practitioners of it. ↗

— Norman Granz

#apart #art #art form #attached #form

What makes the prospect of death distinctive in the modern age is the background of permanent technological and sociological revolution against which it is set, and which serves to strip us of any possible faith in the permanence of our labours. Our ancestors could believe that their achievements had a chance of bearing up against the flow of events. We know time to be a hurricane. Our buildings, our sense of style, our ideas, all of these will soon enough be anachronisms, and the machines in which we now take inordinate pride will seem no less bathetic than Yorick's skull. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#anachronisms #death #permanence #revolution #sociology

Many have died; you also will die. The drum of death is being beaten. The world has fallen in love with a dream. Only sayings of the wise will remain. ↗

— Kabir

#impermanence #old-songs #sword-sentiments #wisdom #zen

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. ↗

— Rabindranath Tagore

#inspirational #inspirational

Bones are patient. Bones never tire nor do they run away. When you come upon a man who has been dead many years, his bones will still be lying there, in place, content, patiently waiting, but his flesh will have gotten up and left him. Water is like flesh. Water will not stand still. It is always off to somewhere else; restless, talkative, and curious. Even water in a covered jar will disappear in time. Flesh is water. Stones are like bones. Satisfied. Patient. Dependable. Tell me, then, Alobar, in order to achieve immortality, should you emulate water or stone? Should you trust your flesh or your bones? ↗

— Tom Robbins

#death #immortality #life #permanence #stones

The search for something permanent is one of the deepest of the instincts leading men to philosophy. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#permanent #philosophy #men