
Collected Works, Vol. 14, pp. 17–362.
Collected Works
The Other World (1657)
Context: All that has sensation and growth — all matter, in short — will pass through man. When that has happened, the great Day of Judgment will come, and that is the end point of the mysteries in the philosophy of the prophets.
Collected Works, Vol. 14, pp. 17–362.
Collected Works
“And why art thou not content to pass through this short time in an orderly way?”
X, 31
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X
Context: Continuously thou wilt look at human things as smoke and nothing at all; especially if thou reflectest at the same time, that what has once changed will never exist again in the infinite duration of time. But thou, in what a brief space of time is thy existence? And why art thou not content to pass through this short time in an orderly way?
Source: The Externalization of the Hierarchy (1957), p. 7
À l'heure, si sombre encore, de la civilisation où nous sommes, le misérable s'appelle L'HOMME; il agonise sous tous les climats, et il gémit dans toutes les langues.
Letter To M. Daelli on Les Misérables (1862)
Source: The Mind and the Brain, 1907, p. 13-14
Source: The Cream of the Jest (1917), Ch. 26 : "Epper Si Muove"
Context: To-day alone was real. Never was man brought into contact with reality save through the evanescent emotions and sensations of that single moment, that infinitesimal fraction of a second, which was passing now — and it was in the insignificance of this moment, precisely, that religious persons must believe. So ran the teachings of all dead and lingering faiths alike. Here was, perhaps, only another instance of mankind's abhorrence of actualities; and man's quaint dislike of facing reality was here disguised as a high moral principle. That was why all art, which strove to make the sensations of a moment soul-satisfying, was dimly felt to be irreligious. For art performed what religion only promised.
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