
“It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top.”
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), I Philosophy
“It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top.”
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
The Philosophical Emperor, a Political Experiment, or, The Progress of a False Position: (1841)
Context: To jump occasionally into the pit is common to all who visit the mountain, and to some who keep on the plain; but the madness to which I have alluded consists in rapid alternations from the mountain to the pit, annoying all persons who are forced, by friendship or consanguinity, to consort with the unfortunate maniacs. To remain permanently either on the pinnacle or in the abyss is deemed a species of the same disorder, though not so common.
Source: The Name of the Rose (Everyman's Library
Jorn's quote, on the publication of the book Thidrek of Folk Art (1948)
1949 - 1958, Various sources
“The purest water is formed by flowing through the muddiest mountains”
page 45
Dark Rooms (2002)
“This is the age in which hills can look down upon the mountains.”
A Morir [To Die]
“If there is a faith which can move mountains, then it is a faith in one’s own strength.”
Wenn es einen Glauben gibt, der Berge versetzen kann, so ist es der Glaube an die eigene Kraft.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 22.
1960s, Keep Moving From This Mountain (1965)
Context: We have allowed our civilization to outrun our culture; we have allowed our technology to outdistance our theology and for this reason we find ourselves caught up with many problems. Through our scientific genius we made of the world a neighborhood, but we failed through moral commitment to make of it a brotherhood, and so we’ve ended up with guided missiles and misguided men. And the great challenge is to move out of the mountain of practical materialism and move on to another and higher mountain which recognizes somehow that we must live by and toward the basic ends of life. We must move on to that mountain which says in substance, "What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world of means — airplanes, televisions, electric lights — and lose the end: the soul?"
“A man's passion for the mountain is, above all, his childhood which refuses to die.”