"Writers may be classified as meteors, planets, and fixed stars. A meteor makes a striking effect for a moment. You look up and cry “There!” and it is gone forever. Planets and wandering stars last a much longer time. They often outshine the fixed stars and are confounded by them by the inexperienced; but this only because they are near. It is not long before they must yield their place; nay, the light they give is reflected only, and the sphere of their influence is confined to their orbit — their contemporaries. Their path is one of change and movement, and with the circuit of a few years their tale is told. Fixed stars are the only ones that are constant; their position in the firmament is secure; they shine with a light of their own; their effect today is the same as it was yesterday, because, having no parallax, their appearance does not alter with a difference in our standpoint. They belong not to one system, one nation only, but to the universe. And just because they are so very far away, it is usually many years before their light is visible to the inhabitants of this earth."
React to this quote
More by Arthur Schopenhauer
See allResonant Thoughts
"There at the moment in.. .Boudin and Jongkind are here; we get on marvelously. There's lots to be learned and nature begins to grow beautiful.. .I shall tell you I'm sending a flower picture to the ex…"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"The original 1954 Japanese film, Gojira was iconic, and only made a couple mistakes of any significance. Th…"
— Aron Ra"I know the basic facts cause they’ve been repeated again and again across various duty desk counters at pol…"
— Pete Doherty"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today, I consider myself th…"
— Lou Gehrig"For himself, he had never thought it would be this bad. He had stopped remembering her, except maybe ten ti…"
— Poul Anderson"The new regime which had succeeded his after the coup had become as fragmentary as the old, in the time-hon…"
— Alastair Reynolds"In a whisper he began begging for—and, as the sun set, received—the concession people always beg for: a lit…"
— Zadie Smith