Peter Quince at the Clavier (1915)
Context: Beauty is momentary in the mind —
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.
The body dies; the body's beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden's choral.
“Jesus promised the resurrection of the body, not an afterlife as a disembodied consciousness. Despite this, the followers of Jesus have always disparaged the flesh. Their belief that humans are marked off from the rest of creation by having an immortal soul has led them to disown the fate they share with other animals. They cannot reconcile their attachment to the body with their hope of immortality. When the two come into conflict it is always the flesh that is left behind.”
The Unsaved: Gnosticism and the cybernauts
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)
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John Gray 164
British philosopher 1948Related quotes
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 519.
Cross-correspondences (pp. 32-3)
The Immortalization Commission: The Strange Quest to Cheat Death (2011)
Quoted in The Sage And the Housewife (2005) by Shanta Kelker, Ch. 3
Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, pp. 419-420
Source: The Magnificent Defeat
Suicidez-vous, désespérés, et vous, torturés du corps et de l'âme, perdez tout espoir. Il n'y a plus pour vous de soulagement en ce monde. Le monde vit de vos charniers.
General Security: The Liquidation of Opium (1925)
“Plato affirmed that the soul was immortal and clothed in many bodies successively.”
Plato, 40.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 3: Plato