
Discourse no. 2, delivered on December 11, 1769; vol. 1, p. 28.
Discourses on Art
Vie de Jésus (Paris: Flammarion, 1936) p. 257; Julie Kernan (trans.) Life of Jesus (New York: David McKay, [1937] 1951) p. 223.
Context: Very little would have been needed for the tears of Judas to be allied in the memory of mankind with those of Peter. He might have become a saint, the patron of all of us who constantly betray Christ.
Il s'en est fallu de très peu que les larmes de Judas ne fussent confondues, dans le souvenir des hommes, avec celles de Pierre. Il aurait pu devenir un saint, le patron de nous tous qui ne cessons de trahir.
Discourse no. 2, delivered on December 11, 1769; vol. 1, p. 28.
Discourses on Art
quoted in Minds Behind the Brain. A History of the Pioneers and Their Discoveries by S. Finger, 2000
“Memory peters out like the infinite series of a ζ-function.”
"The Mathematical Theory of the Top" (April 8, 1898)
Context: Turning to Klein's little book, one is astonished in finding the most general aspects of the subject treated almost without computation and in so little space.... It would have cost little to give the expanded form of the σ-function.... Weierstrass's original notation was in terms of Abelian functions. The tremendous development of s is out of proportion with their application to natural phenomena. Meeting them rarely one forgets them. Memory peters out like the infinite series of a ζ-function.
The Issues of Life and Death.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture”
The Decay of Lying (1889)
Context: If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture... In a house, we all feel of the proper proportions. Everything is subordinated to us, fashioned for our use and our pleasure.
“Our nemesis is time, against which we have a single ally, memory, and even it betrays us.”
Source: Literature Unbound