“Yes, I know, we are merely empty forms of matter, but we are indeed sublime in having invented God and our soul.”

— Stéphane Mallarmé

Letter to Henri Cazalis (April 1866), published in Selected Letters of Stéphane Mallarmé (1988), p. 60.
Observations
Context: Yes, I know, we are merely empty forms of matter, but we are indeed sublime in having invented God and our soul. So sublime, my friend, that I want to gaze upon matter, fully conscious that it exists, and yet launching itself madly into Dream, despite its knowl edge that Dream has no existence, extolling the Soul and all the divine impressions of that kind which have collected within us from the beginning of time and proclaiming, in the face of the Void which is truth, these glorious lies!

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Stéphane Mallarmé 36

French Symbolist poet 1842–1898

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“Thus I saw full surely that it is readier to us to come to the knowing of God than to know our own Soul. For our Soul is so deep-grounded in God, and so endlessly treasured, that we may not come to the knowing thereof till we have first knowing of God, which is the Maker, to whom it is oned. But, notwithstanding, I saw that we have, for fulness, to desire wisely and truly to know our own Soul: whereby we are learned to seek it where it is, and that is, in God. And thus by gracious leading of the Holy Ghost, we should know them both in one: whether we be stirred to know God or our Soul, both are good and true.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

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“Highly ought we to rejoice that God dwelleth in our soul, and much more highly ought we to rejoice that our soul dwelleth in God. Our soul is made to be God’s dwelling-place; and the dwelling-place of the soul is God, Which is unmade. And high understanding it is, inwardly to see and know that God, which is our Maker, dwelleth in our soul; and an higher understanding it is, inwardly to see and to know that our soul, that is made, dwelleth in God’s Substance: of which Substance, God, we are that we are.
And I saw no difference between God and our Substance: but as it were all God; and yet mine understanding took that our Substance is in God: that is to say, that God is God, and our Substance is a creature in God.”

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“And if the immortality of the soul had been unable to find vindication in rational empiricism, neither is it satisfied with pantheism. To say that everything is God, and that when we die, we return to God, or more accurately, continue in Him, avails our longing nothing; for if this indeed be so, then we were in God before we were born, and if we die we return to where we were before being born, then the human soul, the individual consciousness, is perishable. And since we know very well that God, the personal and conscious God of Christian monotheism, is simply the provider, and above all the guarantor, of our immortality, pantheism is said, and rightly said to be merely atheism disguised; and in my opinion, undisguised.”

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“God, the devil, good, evil, it's all in our heads, not in Heaven or Hell, which we also invented. We do not realize that, having invented God, we immediately became His slaves.”

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“No matter our talent, we all know in the midnight of our souls that 90 percent of what we do is less than our best.”

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“We may never come to full knowing of God till we know first clearly our own Soul.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 56
Variant: We can never come to full knowing of God till we know first clearly our own Soul.

“I see, indeed I know, that in some sense God is love, and God is wisdom, and God is creative action, yes and God is beauty; but what God actually is, whether the maker of all things, or the fragrance of all things, or just a dream in our own hearts, I have not the art to know. Neither have you, I believe; nor any man, nor any spirit of our humble stature.”

Olaf Stapledon book Sirius

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“Here we are reaching out for aliens
Looking for our salvation.
Pity our emptiness
Save our souls.”

Happy Rhodes (1965) American singer-songwriter

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Context: We are the number one offender
Of specieism and yet
Here we are reaching out for aliens
Looking for our salvation.
Pity our emptiness
Save our souls.

“Take the whole range of imaginative literature, and we are all wholesale borrowers. In every matter that relates to invention, to use, or beauty or form, we are borrowers.”

Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer

Lecture: The Lost Arts, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

And high understanding it is, inwardly to see and know that God, which is our Maker, dwelleth in our soul; and an higher understanding it is, inwardly to see and to know that our soul, that is made, dwelleth in God’s Substance: of which Substance, God, we are that we are.
And I saw no difference between God and our Substance: but as it were all God; and yet mine understanding took that our Substance is in God: that is to say, that God is God, and our Substance is a creature in God.
Summations, Chapter 54

“Yes, I know, we are merely empty forms of matter, but we are indeed sublime in having invented God and our soul.”

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Stéphane Mallarmé 36

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