Notes for City of Stones by Elizabeth Butler (p. 10)
The Falling Woman (1986)
“Sometimes the air is awfully clear here. You can look off to sea and see the soft, warm, raggedy roof of clouds stretching on and on and on. It almost seems as if you can look right on into eternity.”
Letter to his brother Jeff, from Hawaii (22 March 1942); p. 17
To Reach Eternity (1989)
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James Jones 52
American author 1921–1977Related quotes
“If you can see, look. If you can look, observe.”
José Saramago
book
Blindness
Se podes olhar, vê. Se podes ver, repara.
Epigraph
Blindness (1995)
“But you want to remember that below the sea of clouds lies eternity.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
(1900–1944) French writer and aviator
Source: Terre des Hommes (1939), Ch. I : The Craft
Context: "Navigating by the compass in a sea of clouds over Spain is all very well, it is very dashing, but—"
And I was struck by the graphic image:
"But you want to remember that below the sea of clouds lies eternity."
And suddenly that tranquil cloud-world, that world so harmless and simple that one sees below on rising out of the clouds, took on in my eyes a new quality. That peaceful world became a pitfall. I imagined the immense white pitfall spread beneath me. Below it reigned not what one might think — not the agitation of men, not the living tumult and bustle of cities, but a silence even more absolute than in the clouds, a peace even more final. This viscous whiteness became in my mind the frontier between the real and the unreal, between the known and the unknowable. Already I was beginning to realize that a spectacle has no meaning except it be seen through the glass of a culture, a civilization, a craft. Mountaineers too know the sea of clouds, yet it does not seem to them the fabulous curtain it is to me.
Thomas Carlyle
(1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
Bk. III, ch. 8.
1830s, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834)
Context: But deepest of all illusory Appearances, for hiding Wonder, as for many other ends, are your two grand fundamental world-enveloping Appearances, SPACE and TIME. These, as spun and woven for us from before Birth itself, to clothe our celestial ME for dwelling here, and yet to blind it, — lie all-embracing, as the universal canvas, or warp and woof, whereby all minor Illusions, in this Phantasm Existence, weave and paint themselves. In vain, while here on Earth, shall you endeavor to strip them off; you can, at best, but rend them asunder for moments, and look through.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974)
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 6 (p. 190)