"Markings", p. 438
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)
“Man's sensitivity to the little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange disorder.”
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Blaise Pascal 144
French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Chri… 1623–1662Related quotes
George E. P. Box
(1919–2013) British statistician
G.E.P Box (1955); cited in: JOC/EFR (2006) " George Edward Pelham Box http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Box.html" at history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk, Nov 2006.
Halford E. Luccock
(1885–1960) American Methodist minister
Keeping Life Out of Confusion (1938)
Context: We ought to recognize that uncertainty of mind is not all a bad thing. It is a sign that your mind is still alive, still sensitive. If you are not at all confused in this day you are dead mentally and spiritually.
There is of course the peace of the cemetery. If you want that you can have it. But you will pay for such complacent serenity with blind eyes which do not see the world's fear and agony; with deaf ears, into which the still sad music of humanity never comes; with deadened nerves and unsensitized conscience.
We will never be brought to confusion, even in such a baffling and muddled world as ours, if we have a faith in a God of love as the ultimate power in the universe. The words "God is love" have this deep meaning: that everything that is against love is ultimately doomed and damned.
Margaret J. Wheatley
(1941) American writer
Source: Leadership and the New Science (1992), p. 19-20 as cited in: Michael C. Jackson (2000) Systems Approaches to Management. p. 77
Paul Valéry
(1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher
Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), p. 58
"A Woman's Liberation", p. 208
Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995)
“A. A violent order is disorder; and
B. A great disorder is an order. These
Two things are one.”
Wallace Stevens
(1879–1955) American poet
"Connoisseur of Chaos"
Parts of a World (1942)
“It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London.”
Characters, Ch. 1 : Thoughts About People
Sketches by Boz (1836-1837)
Context: It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy in the breast of any single person; his existence is a matter of interest to no one save himself; he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for no one remembered him when he was alive. There is a numerous class of people in this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend, and whom nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity in the first instance, they have resorted to London in search of employment, and the means of subsistence. It is hard, we know, to break the ties which bind us to our homes and friends, and harder still to efface the thousand recollections of happy days and old times, which have been slumbering in our bosoms for years, and only rush upon the mind, to bring before it associations connected with the friends we have left, the scenes we have beheld too probably for the last time, and the hopes we once cherished, but may entertain no more. These men, however, happily for themselves, have long forgotten such thoughts. Old country friends have died or emigrated; former correspondents have become lost, like themselves, in the crowd and turmoil of some busy city; and they have gradually settled down into mere passive creatures of habit and endurance.
“A thing which fades
With no outward sign—
Is the flower
Of the heart of man
In this world!”
Ono no Komachi
(825–900) Japanese poet
trans. Arthur Waley, p. 78
Donald Keene's Anthology of Japanese Literature (1955)