“A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.”

— N. Scott Momaday , book The Way to Rainy Mountain

Source: The Way to Rainy Mountain

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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N. Scott Momaday 5

American author 1934

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“The universal intelligence puts itself in motion for every separate effect… or it puts itself in motion once, and everything else comes by way of a sequence in a manner; or individual elements are the origin of all things. In a word, if there is a god, all is well; and if chance rules, do not thou be governed by it.”

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“Language has become the universal evil. And we can certainly see why. What characterizes any word is its difference from the thing – the fact that, taken in itself, in its own reality, language contains nothing of the reality of the thing, none of its properties. This difference from the thing explains its indifference to the thing. Since a word has nothing in itself that is identical or similar to what is in the thing, it could as well be united with any other thing whatever. One could use the same name for two different things or else attribute several names to the same thing. But because, in and of itself, the word contains nothing that is real and ignores everything about that reality, it could just as well bring reality back to itself, identify with it, define it, in such a way that everything the word says becomes reality, and pretends to stand for it. Emerging from its own powerlessness, the power of language suddenly becomes frightening, shaking up reality, twisting it up in its frenzy.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

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“Faith is not a thing that comes into being out of nothing. It originates in an event.”

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Context: Faith is not a thing that comes into being out of nothing. It originates in an event. In the spiritual vacancy of life something may suddenly occur that is like the lifting of a veil at the horizon of knowledge. A simple episode may open sight of the eternal. A shift of conceptions, boisterous like a tempest of soft as a breeze may swerve a mind for an instant or forever. For God is not wholly silent and man is not always deaf. God's willingness to call men to His service and man's responsiveness to the divine indications in things and events are for faith what sun and soil are for the plant.

“When time itself shall be no more,
And all things in confusion hurl'd,
Music shall then exert it's power,
And sound survive the ruins of the world”

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Context: When time itself shall be no more,
And all things in confusion hurl'd,
Music shall then exert it's power,
And sound survive the ruins of the world:
Then saints and angels shall agree
In one eternal jubilee:
All Heaven shall echo with their hymns divine,
And God himself with pleasure see
The whole creation in a chorus join.

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Source: A Northern Light

“Nothing comes from without; all things come from within - from the subconscious”

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“There is no meaning to space that is independent of the relationships among real things of the world. …Space is nothing apart from the things that exist. …If we take out all the words we are not left with an empty sentence, we are left with nothing.”

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“I have nothing to do with the origin of the primary mental powers, any more than I have with that of life itself.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter VII: "Instinct", page 207 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=225&itemID=F373&viewtype=side
Context: I must premise, that I have nothing to do with the origin of the primary mental powers, any more than I have with that of life itself. We are concerned only with the diversities of instinct and of the other mental qualities of animals within the same class.

“A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.”

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N. Scott Momaday 5

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