“Everything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does. The merest spark may set all Europe in a blaze, but though all Europe be set in a blaze twenty times over, the world will wag itself right again.”

Sparks
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy

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Samuel Butler 232
novelist 1835–1902

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Samuel Butler photo

“Everything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Sparks
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy
Context: Everything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does. The merest spark may set all Europe in a blaze, but though all Europe be set in a blaze twenty times over, the world will wag itself right again.

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon photo

“The lamps are going out all over Europe: we shall not see them lit again in our life-time”

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933) British Liberal statesman

Vol. 2, ch. 18, p. 20 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=d68gSzbih8QC&q=remarked
On his famous remark, in August of 1914, about the impending outbreak of the First World War
Cf. John Alfred Spender: Life, Journalism and Politics, Vol. 2, Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York 1927. Chp. 20, p. 14 archive.org http://www.archive.org/stream/lifejournalismpo02jasprich#page/14/mode/2up and w:The lamps are going out.
Twenty-five Years (1925)
Context: A friend came to see me on one of the evenings of the last week — he thinks it was on Monday, August 3rd. We were standing at a window of my room in the Foreign Office. It was getting dusk, and the lamps were being lit in the space below... My friend recalls that I remarked on this with the words, "The lamps are going out all over Europe: we shall not see them lit again in our life-time."

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Denis Diderot photo

“Time, matter, space — all, it may be, are no more than a point.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Dying words of Nicholas Saunderson as portrayed in Lettre sur les aveugles [Letter on the Blind] (1749)
Variant translation:
What is this world of ours? A complex entity subject to sudden changes which all indicate a tendency to destruction; a swift succession of beings which follow one another, assert themselves and disappear; a fleeting symmetry; a momentary order.
Context: What is this world? A complex whole, subject to endless revolutions. All these revolutions show a continual tendency to destruction; a swift succession of beings who follow one another, press forward, and vanish; a fleeting symmetry; the order of a moment. I reproached you just now with estimating the perfection of things by your own capacity; and I might accuse you here of measuring its duration by the length of your own days. You judge of the continuous existence of the world, as an ephemeral insect might judge of yours. The world is eternal for you, as you are eternal to the being that lives but for one instant. Yet the insect is the more reasonable of the two. For what a prodigious succession of ephemeral generations attests your eternity! What an immeasurable tradition! Yet shall we all pass away, without the possibility of assigning either the real extension that we filled in space, or the precise time that we shall have endured. Time, matter, space — all, it may be, are no more than a point.

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“Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe. If we do not stop Islamification now, Eurabia and Netherabia will just be a matter of time.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

2000s
Context: Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe. If we do not stop Islamification now, Eurabia and Netherabia will just be a matter of time. One century ago, there were approximately 50 Muslims in the Netherlands. Today, there are about 1 million Muslims in this country. Where will it end? We are heading for the end of European and Dutch civilisation as we know it.

Carl Sagan photo

“If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there's nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

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