“How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.”

Source: Cosmos

Galactic Perspective http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/05/04/galactic-perspective/, wattsupwiththat.com, May 4 2007. <br class="br">2007

Vague Thoughts On Art (1911)
Context: Art is the one form of human energy in the whole world, which really works for union, and destroys the barriers between man and man. It is the continual, unconscious replacement, however fleeting, of oneself by another; the real cement of human life; the everlasting refreshment and renewal. For, what is grievous, dompting, grim, about our lives is that we are shut up within ourselves, with an itch to get outside ourselves. And to be stolen away from ourselves by Art is a momentary relaxation from that itching, a minute's profound, and as it were secret, enfranchisement. The active amusements and relaxations of life can only rest certain of our faculties, by indulging others; the whole self is never rested save through that unconsciousness of self, which comes through rapt contemplation of Nature or of Art.

1.2.
Ecclesiastical History

Source: Crisis

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Four: The Beauty of the Heavens

The Timeless World of Play http://books.google.com/books?id=Rp3TJUCT9soC&amp;q=%22Snatching+the+eternal+out+of+the+desperately+fleeting+is+the+great+magic+trick+of+human+existence%22&amp;pg=PA6#v=onepage, an introductory essay to The Rose Tattoo (1951)