“Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.”

— John Muir, book My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 204
1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

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John Muir183

Scottish-born American naturalist and author 1838–1914

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 124
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

“When we consider a human work, we believe we know where the "intelligence" which fashioned it comes from; but when a living being is concerned, no one knows or ever knew, neither Darwin nor Epicurus, neither Leibniz nor Aristotle, neither Einstein nor Parmenides. An act of faith is necessary to make us adopt one hypothesis rather than another. Science, which does not accept any credo, or in any case should not, acknowledges its ignorance, its inability to solve this problem which, we are certain, exists and has reality.”

Pierre-Paul Grassé (1895–1985) French zoologist

Evolution of living organisms: evidence for a new theory of transformation (1977)

“Neither is the longing for immortality saved, but rather dissolved and submerged, by agnosticism, or the doctrine of the unknowable. …The unknowable, if it is something more than the merely hitherto unknown, is but a purely negative concept, a concept of limitation. And upon this foundation no human feeling can be built up.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), V : The Rationalist Dissolution

“Faith seems to me wholly lost, and hope dead; for it seems to me that I have and hold in certainty that which I believed and hoped at other times. I no longer see union, for I know nothing more and can see nothing more than him alone without me. I do not know where the I is, nor do I seek it, nor do I wish to know or be cognizant of it.”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

“and even the trees we walked
under
seemed
less than
trees
and more like everything
else.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

“I daresay it seems foolish; perhaps all our earthly trials will appear foolish to us after a while; perhaps they seem so now to angels. But we are ourselves, you know, and this is now, not some time to come, a long, long way off. And we are not angels, to be comforted by seeing the ends for which everything is sent.”

Elizabeth Gaskell book Wives and Daughters

Wives and Daughters, ch. 11
Wives and Daughters

“We struggle onward, ignorant and blind,
For a result unknown and undesign’d;
Avoiding seeming ills, misunderstood,
Embracing evil as a seeming good.”

Theognis of Megara (-570–-485 BC) Greek lyric poet active in approximately the sixth century BC

Source: Elegies, Lines 137-139, as translated by J. Banks, The Works of Hesiod, Callimachus, and Theognis (1856), p. 464 http://books.google.com/books?id=QqFaP-4DExEC&pg=PA464

“Time moves so quickly, and no matter who we are or what we have done, the time will come when our lives will be over. As Jesus said, "As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work" (John 9:4). … Life is short, and every day is a gift from God.”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

Just As I Am : The Autobiography of Billy Graham (1997) co-written with Cliff Barrows
Context: "What is the greatest surprise you have found about life?” a university student asked me several years ago.
"Its brevity" I replied without hesitation. … Time moves so quickly, and no matter who we are or what we have done, the time will come when our lives will be over. As Jesus said, "As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work" (John 9:4). … Life is short, and every day is a gift from God.

“We were put here as witnesses to the miracle of life. We see the stars, and we want them. We are beholden to give back to the universe…. If we make landfall on another star system, we become immortal.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Speech to National School Board Association (1995)

“Able to save to the uttermost, "Lord to whom shall we go; Thou hast the words of eternal life?" Thou who hast abolished death, upon whom else shall we suspend our immortality?”

Henry Melvill (1798–1871) British academic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 231.

“Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.”

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John Muir183

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