“The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.”
Oscar Wilde book Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young
Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)
Alternate translation: Then in the middle of all stands the sun. For who, in our most beautiful temple, could set this light in another or better place, than that from which it can at once illuminate the whole? Not to speak of the fact that not unfittingly do some call it the light of the world, others the soul, still others the governor. Tremigistus calls it the visible God; Sophocles' Electra, the All-seer. And in fact does the sun, seated on his royal throne, guide his family of planets as they circle round him.
Book 1, Ch. 10, Alternate translation as quoted in Edwin Arthur Burtt in The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science (1925)
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543)
Context: At rest, however, in the middle of everything is the sun. For, in this most beautiful temple, who would place this lamp in another or better position than that from which it can light up the whole thing at the same time? For, the sun is not inappropriately called by some people the lantern of the universe, its mind by others, and its ruler by still others. The Thrice Greatest labels it a visible god, and Sophocles' Electra, the all-seeing. Thus indeed, as though seated on a royal throne, the sun governs the family of planets revolving around it.
“The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.”
Oscar Wilde book Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young
Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)
“Everything looks like a failure in the middle.”
Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1943) American economist
Slightly edited version of text in The Change Masters, Simon and Shuster, 1987
Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist
and with Britain in 1948 and 1956
Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Dangers, Vietnam and the Middle East
“As far as I'm concerned, I'm a middle-of-the-road moderate and the rest of you are crazy.”
Ann Coulter book If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans
Source: If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans
“The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher
José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist
Letter to Fr. Pastells (11 November 1892)
Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer
You Can Call Me Al
Song lyrics, Graceland (1986)
Context: A man walks down the street
He says why am I soft in the middle now
Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard
I need a photo opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard.
“To know that the balance does not quite rest,
That the mask is strange, however like.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet
The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)
Context: What is beyond the cathedral, outside,
Balances with nuptial song.
So it is to sit and to balance things
To and to and to the point of still,
To say of one mask it is like,
To say of another it is like,
To know that the balance does not quite rest,
That the mask is strange, however like.
“If emptiness is endless, then everything rests in emptiness.”
Dejan Stojanovic book The Sign and Its Children
"The Sign and Emptiness," p. 9
The Sign and Its Children (2000), Sequence: “The Supreme Sign”