“The mysterious power of harmony
Will expiate a heavy delusion
And tame a revolting desire.”
Evgeny Baratynsky (1800–1844) Russian poet
Sacred song heals the sick spirit
Easy Go (1967)
“The mysterious power of harmony
Will expiate a heavy delusion
And tame a revolting desire.”
Evgeny Baratynsky (1800–1844) Russian poet
Sacred song heals the sick spirit
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author
Little Mattie, Stanza ii; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Robert M. Sapolsky (1957) American endocrinologist
Emperor Has No Clothes Award acceptance speech (2003)
Context: The purpose of science in understanding who we are as humans is not to rob us of our sense of mystery, not to cure us of our sense of mystery. The purpose of science is to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate that mystery. To always use it in a context where we are helping people in trying to resist the forces of ideology that we are all familiar with.
Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic
Epilogue (p. 687)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
"Assorted Landmines", p. 148
Awareness (1992)
Context: As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life. But life has no meaning; it cannot have meaning because meaning is a formula; meaning is something that makes sense to the mind. Every time you make sense out of reality, you bump into something that destroys the sense you made. Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.
“To be in touch with senses and emotions beyond conquest is to enter the realm of the mysterious.”
Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist
Source: Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (2006), Chapter 2, Altars of Sacrifice
Richard Feynman book The Meaning of It All
lecture II: "The Uncertainty of Values"
The Meaning of It All (1999)
“He who meditates into the mysteries of the Holy Quran is sagacious in true sense.”
Sari al-Saqati (772–867) Iraqi sufi
Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam, p. 43