New Theories of Everything (2007)
Context: Scanning the past millennia of human achievement reveals just how much has been achieved during the last three hundred years since Newton set in motion the effective mathematization of Nature. We found that the world is curiously adapted to a simple mathematical description. It is enigma enough that the world is described by mathematics; but by simple mathematics, of the sort that a few years energetic study now produces familiarity with, this is an enigma within an enigma.<!--Ch. 1, p. 2
“Man himself is an enigma in motion”
Introduction
The Gods (1934)
Context: Man himself is an enigma in motion; his questions never stay asked; whereas the mold, the footprint, and by natural extension, the statue itself, like the vaults, the arches, the temples with which man records his own passing, remain immobile and fix a moment of man’s life, upon which one might endlessly meditate.
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Alain 35
French philosopher 1868–1951Related quotes
Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter II, "Religion", pp. 143-4.
“I know the motion of the deepest stone.
Each one's himself, yet each one's everyone.”
"The Sententious Man," ll. 31-36
Words for the Wind (1958)
Context: p>Is pain a promise? I was schooled in pain,
And found out what I could of all desire;
I weep for what I'm like when I'm alone
In the deep center of the voice and fire.I know the motion of the deepest stone.
Each one's himself, yet each one's everyone.</p
“The absurd and legendary devil is the enigma of the Church.”
The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (18 October 1890)
The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (1890 and 1891)
Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 170-171 ( 1846 edition http://books.google.com/books?id=UkoWAAAAYAAJ)
Context: This statistical regularity in moral affairs fully establishes their being under the presidency of law. Man is now seen to be an enigma only as an individual; in the mass he is a mathematical problem. It is hardly necessary to say, much less to argue, that mental action, being proved to be under law, passes at once into the category of natural things. Its old metaphysical character vanishes in a moment, and the distinction usually taken between physical and moral is annulled, as only an error in terms. This view agrees with what all observation teaches, that mental phenomena flow directly from the brain.