Die Wolken gehören zur Erde, nicht zum Himmel.
Runen und Wahrzeichen
Die Wolken gehören zur Erde, nicht zum Himmel.
“Our glories float between the earth and heaven
Like clouds which seem pavilions of the sun.”
Act v, Scene iii.
Richelieu (1839)
"I Am a Rainworm", 1900, translated by Jacob Robbins. J. Leftwich. Golden Peacock. Sci-Art, 1939, p. 83.
Ben Yamen's Song of Geometry (1853)
Context: Ascend with me above the dust, above the cloud, to the realms of the higher geometry, where the heavens are never clouded; where there is no impure vapour, and no delusive or imperfect observation, where the new truths are already arisen, while they are yet dimly dawning on the world below; where the earth is a little planet; where the sun has dwindled to a star; where all the stars are lost in the Milky Way to which they belong; where the Milky Way is seen floating through space like any other nebula; where the whole great girdle of nebulae has diminished to an atom and has become as readily and completely submissive to the pen of the geometer, and the slave of his formula, as the single drop, which falls from the clouds, instinct with all the forces of the material world.
“Nothing is further than Earth from Heaven: nothing is nearer than Heaven to Earth.”
Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare Guesses at Truth (London: Macmillan, ([1827-48] 1867) p. 563.
Misattributed
“But no clouds in a red sky promised daylight's return, nor in lessening shadows did a long twilight gleam with reflected sun. Black night that no ray can pierce comes ever denser from earth, veiling the heavens.”
Sed nec puniceo rediturum nubila caelo
promisere jubar, nec rarescentibus umbris
longa repercusso nituere crepuscula Phoebo:
densior a terris et nulli peruia flammae
subtexit nox atra polos.
Source: Thebaid, Book I, Line 342
The Analects, The Doctrine of the Mean
Context: It is only he who is possessed of the most complete sincerity that can exist under heaven, who can give its full development to his nature. Able to give its full development to his own nature, he can do the same to the nature of other men. Able to give its full development to the nature of other men, he can give their full development to the natures of animals and things. Able to give their full development to the natures of creatures and things, he can assist the transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth. Able to assist the transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth, he may with Heaven and Earth form a ternion.
“The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.”
24 June 1813
1810s, Letters to John Wayles Eppes (1813)
