“The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.”
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Carl Sagan 365
American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science ed… 1934–1996Related quotes
Source: Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself
“And without music there can be no perfect knowledge, for there is nothing without it. For even the universe itself is said to have been put together with a certain harmony of sounds, and the very heavens revolve under the guidance of harmony.”
Itaque sine Musica nulla disciplina potest esse perfecta, nihil enim sine illa. Nam et ipse mundus quadam harmonia sonorum fertur esse conpositus, et coelum ipsud sub harmoniae modulatione revolvi.
Bk. 3, ch. 17, sect. 1; p. 137.
Etymologiae
Talk at All Souls Unitarian Church Fourth Avenue and Twentieth Street, New York (14 July 1912) http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/PUP/pup-82.html#gr14
Promulgation of World Peace
Context: In the great body of human society it is impossible to establish unity and coordination if one part is considered perfect and the other imperfect. When the perfect functions of both parts are in operation, harmony will prevail. God has created man and woman equal as to faculties. He has made no distinction between them.
“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.”
Attributed in The Life You Were Born to Live : Finding Your Life Purpose (1995) by Dan Millman, Pt. 2, Ch. 2 : Cooperation and Balance
Disputed
“…the harmony of the universe is preserved…”
1995/10
Misc
Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 66
St. 1.
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day http://www.englishverse.com/poems/a_song_for_st_cecilias_day_1687 (1687)
Context: From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
'Arise, ye more than dead!'
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.
“Excellence does not require perfection.”
Address to the Society for Psychical Research (1897)
Context: The human creature represents the most perfect thinking and acting machine yet evolved on this earth, developing through countless ages in strict harmony with the surrounding conditions of temperature, atmosphere, light, and gravitation. The profound modifications in the human frame, which any important alteration in either of these factors would occasion, are strangely unconsidered. It is true there have been questionings as to the effects that might be occasioned by changes in temperature and atmospheric composition, but possible variations in gravitation seem almost to have escaped notice. The human body, which long experience and habit have taught us to consider in its highest development as the perfection of beauty and grace — "formed in the image of God " — is entirely conditioned by the strength of gravitation on this globe. So far as has been possible to ascertain, the intensity of gravity has not varied appreciably within those geologic ages covering the existence of animated thinking beings.