“Every human being is the natural guardian of his own importance.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher
Source: 1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925), Ch. 9: "Science and Philosophy"
Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 1
“Every human being is the natural guardian of his own importance.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher
Source: 1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925), Ch. 9: "Science and Philosophy"
Tom Robbins (1932) American writer
The Syntax of Sorcery (2012)
Context: Christians, and some Jews, claim we're in the "end times," but they've been saying this off and on for more than two thousand years. According to Hindu cosmology, we're in the Kali Yuga, a dark period when the cow of history is balanced precariously on one leg, soon to topple. Then there are our new-age friends who believe that this December we're in for a global cage-rattling which, once the dust has settled, will usher in a great spiritual awakening.
Most of this apocalyptic noise appears to be just wishful thinking on the part of people who find life too messy and uncertain for comfort, let alone for serenity and mirth. The truth, from my perspective, is that the world, indeed, is ending – and is also being reborn. It's been doing that all day, every day, forever. Each time we exhale, the world ends; when we inhale, there can be, if we allow it, rebirth and spiritual renewal. It all transpires inside of us. In our consciousness, in our hearts. All the time.
Otherwise, ours is an old, old story with an interesting new wrinkle. Throughout most of our history, nothing – not flood, famine, plague, or new weapons – has endangered humanity one-tenth as much as the narcissistic ego, with its self-aggrandizing presumptions and its hell-hound spawn of fear and greed. The new wrinkle is that escalating advances in technology are nourishing the narcissistic ego the way chicken manure nourishes a rose bush, while exploding worldwide population is allowing its effects to multiply geometrically. Here's an idea: let's get over ourselves, buy a cherry pie, and go fall in love with life.
Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet
Quem poderá do mal aparelhado
Livrar-se sem perigo sabiamente,
Se lá de cima a Guarda soberana
Não acudir à fraca força humana?
Stanza 30, lines 5–8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto II
Theodore Sturgeon book More Than Human
Source: More Than Human (1953), Chapter 3, p. 186
Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator
Source: Esoteric Christianity: Or, The Lesser Mysteries (1914), Chapter IV. The Historical Christ
Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) French writer
Source: Défense des Lettres [In Defense of Letters] (1937), p. vii
Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist
1950s - 1960s, Excerpt, What Abstract Art Means to Me (1951)
Charles Lyell (1797–1875) British lawyer and geologist
Source: The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Ch.20, p. 390-391
Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist
Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 1