"The very object of art, the principle of its artifice, is precisely to impart the impression of an ideal state in which the man who reaches it will be capable of spontaneously producing, with no effort or hesitation, a magnificent and wonderfully ordered expression of his nature and our destinies."

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“Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be enumerated; when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending toward the condition of science and aspiring to do it. The artist works out his own formulas; the interest of science lies in the art of making science.”

“What is there more mysterious than clarity?… What more capricious than the way in which light and shade are distributed over hours and over men?”

“God created man, and finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a female companion so that he might feel his solitude more acutely.”

“We civilizations now know ourselves mortal.”

“God made everything out of nothing. But the nothingness shows through.”

“The Graveyard By The Sea”

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"In the city of Agra there was a large temple, in which there were numerous idols, adorned and embellished with precious jewels and valuable pearls. It was the custom of the infidels to resort to this …"

— Aurangzeb

Politics1618–1707

#time

"What Wilson and Lloyd George failed to see was that the terms of peace which they were hammering out against the dogged resistance of Clemenceau and Foch, while seemingly severe enough, left Germany i…"

— William L. Shirer

Journalism1904–1993

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"He told me that facts gave birth to, and were the absolute ground of, principles; to which I said, that unless he had a principle of selection, he would not have taken notice of those facts upon which…"

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Literature1772–1834

#wisdom