“Was that, too, destined to thrive awhile and decay and vanish, and be replaced by another, Nortekku wondered? Probably. The earth changes, he thought. Mountains rise, are ground to dust, give way to plains and valleys. Shorelines are drowned; new islands are thrust upward out of the sea. Civilizations are born, die, are forgotten. The planet alone abides, and all that dwells upon it is transient.
Contemplating these things, he felt much the richer for all his freshly acquired knowledge. He felt that for the first time he comprehended, at least some small way, the great chain of existence, stretching across time from misty past to unborn future.”

— Robert Silverberg

Source: Short fiction, A Piece of the Great World (2005), p. 80

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Was that, too, destined to thrive awhile and decay and vanish, and be replaced by another, Nortekku wondered? Probably.…" by Robert Silverberg?

Robert Silverberg photo

Robert Silverberg 88

American speculative fiction writer and editor 1935

Related quotes

“Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all things change into one another”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

X, 11
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X
Context: Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all things change into one another, and constantly attend to it, and exercise thyself about this part [of philosophy]. For nothing is so much adapted to produce magnanimity.... But as to what any man shall say or think about him, or do against him, he never even thinks of it, being himself contented with these two things: with acting justly in what he now does, and being satisfied with what is now assigned to him; and he lays aside all distracting and busy pursuits, and desires nothing else than to accomplish the straight course through the law, and by accomplishing the straight course to follow God.

“He felt good. At worst he had found a brand-new way to die.”

Larry Niven book A World Out of Time

Source: A World Out of Time (1976), Chapter 2 Don Juan, Section 4 (p. 54)

“From the City of Constellations
to the wanderer
and a Place of Rains
he journeys on…
…the City of hesitation and doubt
the Island of the house the colour of the sea
the Plain of Mementoes
he journeys on to find his love…
…the Valley of lost time
the City of End and Endlessness
the Isle of Revenents
he journeys on…”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Song lyrics, Amarantine (2005)

“Such fire was not by water to be drowned,
Nor he his nature changed by changing ground.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Né spegner può, per starne l'acqua, il fuoco,
Né può stato mutar, per mutar loco.
Canto XXVIII, stanza 89 (tr. W. S. Rose)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

“He had once felt light on the ground. He used to think his life was an open-ended adventure, he used to give things away, it amused him when the unexpected happened, benevolent coincidences used to bear him along. When had all that stopped?”

Ian McEwan book The Child in Time

Page 103
The Child in Time (1987)

“He in the turning dust lay
mightily in his might, his horsemanship all forgotten.”

Homér Iliad

XVI. 775–776 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“Such desire is in him
merely to see the hearthsmoke leaping upward
from his own island, that he longs to die.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

I. 58–59 (tr. Robert Fitzgerald).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

“No martyr ever went the way of duty, and felt the shadow of death upon it. The shadow of death is darkest in the valley, which men walk in easily, and is never felt at all on a steep place, like Calvary. Truth is everlasting, and so is every lover of it; and so he feels himself almost always.”

William Mountford (1816–1885) English Unitarian preacher and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 339.

“At night, when he lay down to sleep, he felt that his brain was resonating with the heartbeat of the planet.”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

January “EARTHMOVER”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

“He simply felt that if he could carry away the vision of the spot of earth she walked on, and the way the sky and sea enclosed it, the rest of the world might seem less empty.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

Related topics