“Those who have no absolute values cannot let the relative remain merely relative; they are always raising it to the level of the absolute.”

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Those who have no absolute values cannot let the relative remain merely relative; they are always raising it to the lev…" by Flannery O’Connor?
Flannery O’Connor photo
Flannery O’Connor 82
American novelist, short story writer 1925–1964

Related quotes

Ramakrishna photo

“One cannot think of the Absolute without the Relative, or of the Relative without the Absolute.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), p. 134
Context: Brahman and Śakti are identical. If you accept the one, you must accept the other. It is like fire and its power to burn. If you see the fire, you must recognize its power to burn also. You cannot think of fire without its power to burn, nor can you think of the power to burn without fire. You cannot conceive of the sun's rays without the sun, nor can you conceive of the sun without its rays. You cannot think of the milk without the whiteness, and again, you cannot think of the whiteness without the milk. Thus one cannot think of Brahman without Śakti, or of Śakti without Brahman. One cannot think of the Absolute without the Relative, or of the Relative without the Absolute.

Paramahansa Yogananda photo

“God is simple. Everything else is complex. Do not seek absolute values in the relative world of nature.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

Source: Autobiography of a Yogi:

Marshall McLuhan photo

“Relativity theory forced the abandonment, in principle, of absolute space and absolute time.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 43

Koichi Tohei photo

“There is no conflict in the absolute universe, but there is conflict in the relative world.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

10 : The principle of non-dissension
Ki Sayings (2003)
Context: There is no conflict in the absolute universe, but there is conflict in the relative world. If we unify our mind and body become one with the universe, others will follow us gladly. Do not say that this is a world where we must struggle to live each day. The true way to success is exactly one and the same as the principle of non-dissension, and that is the way of peace.

Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“So in the physics of the heart, distance is relative; it’s time that’s absolute.”

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 6 (p. 97)

Albert Gleizes photo
Jean Metzinger photo
Frithjof Schuon photo

“Only the science of the Absolute gives meaning and discipline to the science of the relative.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2013, From the Divine to the Human, World Wisdom, 119, 978-1-936597-32-1]
Spiritual path, Knowledge

T.S. Eliot photo
Willem de Sitter photo

Related topics