“You know what a miracle is. Not what Bakunin said. But another world’s intrusion into this one. Most of the time we coexist peacefully, but when we do touch there’s cataclysm.”
Source: The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Chapter 5
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Thomas Pynchon 134
American novelist 1937Related quotes
Earliest instance of this quote found on google books is the 1989 book Forest primeval: the natural history of an ancient forest by Chris Maser, but there it appears to be Maser's own thought (see p. 230 http://books.google.com/books?id=8EAHQM54E5gC&q=%a+mirror% followed by a different supposed Gandhi quote http://books.google.com/books?id=8EAHQM54E5gC&q=gandhi).
Disputed
This Business of Living (1935-1950)
“What do we know but that we face one another in this place?”
Source: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Source: The Cardturner: A Novel about a King, a Queen, and a Joker
“The most difficult thing is to know what we do know, and what we do not know.”
Source: Tertium Organum (1912; 1922), Ch. I
Context: The most difficult thing is to know what we do know, and what we do not know.
Therefore, desiring to know anything, we shall before all else determine WHAT we accept as given, and WHAT as demanding definition and proof; that is, determine WHAT we know already, and WHAT we wish to know.
In relation to the knowledge of the world and of ourselves, the conditions would be ideal could we venture to accept nothing as given, and count all as demanding definition and proof. In other words, it would be best to assume that we know nothing, and make this our point of departure.
But unfortunately such conditions are impossible to create. Knowledge must start from some foundation, something must be recognized as known; otherwise we shall be obliged always to define one unknown by means of another.
