Infinity Quotes - Page 7

• The real irony is that the view of infinity as some forbidden zone or road to insanity - which view was very old and powerful and haunted math for 2000+ years - is precisely what Cantor's own work overturned. Saying that infinity drove Cantor mad is sort of like mourning St. George's loss to the dragon: it's not only wrong but insulting.

  David Foster Wallace

  Powerful, Real, Math

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• Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone - those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river; the "what" is in constant flux, the "why" has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what's right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us - a chasm whose depths we cannot see.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Past, Rivers, Mind

  Marcus Aurelius (2002). “Meditations: A New Translation”, p.61, Modern Library

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• I am so in favor of the actual infinite that instead of admitting that Nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that Nature makes frequent use of it everywhere, in order to show more effectively the perfections of its Author. Thus I believe that there is no part of matter which is not - I do not say divisible - but actually divisible; and consequently the least particle ought to be considered as a world full of an infinity of different creatures.

  Georg Cantor

  God, Faith, Hope

  "Out of the Mouths of Mathematicians: A Quotation Book for Philomaths". Book by Rosemary Schmalz, 1993.

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• In all of my universe I have seen no law of nature, unchanging and inexorable. This universe presents only changing relationships which are sometimes seen as laws by short-lived awareness. These fleshy sensoria which we call self are ephemera withering in the blaze of infinity, fleeting aware of temporary conditions which confine our activities and change as our activities change. If you must label the absolute, use its proper name: Temporary.

  Frank Herbert

  Self, Law, Names

  "God Emperor of Dune" by Frank Herbert, "The Stolen Journals", 1981.

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• When her muzzle grew more white than brown, the chipmunk forgot that she and the squirrel had had nothing to talk about. She forgot the definition of "jazz" as well and came to think of it as every beautiful thing she had ever failed to appreciate: the taste of warm rain; the smell of a baby; the din of a swollen river, rushing past her tree and onward to infinity.

  David Sedaris

  Beautiful, Baby, Rain

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• Now, as there is an infinity of possible universes in the Ideas of God, and as only one of them can exist, there must be a sufficient reason for God's choice, which determines him toward one rather than another. And this reason can be found only in the fitness, or the degrees of perfection, that these worlds contain, since each possible thing has the right to claim existence in proportion to the perfection it involves.

  Gottfried Leibniz

  Ideas, Perfection, Choices

  "Monadology". Book by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, paragraphs 53 & 54, 1714.

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• Learn the motions of infinity within your mind. Your mind becomes a perfect mirror to the motions of infinity.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Mirrors, Perfect

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• And what is a kiss, specifically? A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned to taste, a vow stamped with the immediacy of a lip, a rosy circle drawn around the verb 'to love.' A kiss is a message too intimate for the ear, infinity captured in the bee's brief visit to a flower, secular communication with an aftertaste of heaven, the pulse rising from the heart to utter its name on a lover's lip: 'Forever.

  Edmond Rostand

  Love, Flower, Communication

  Edmond Rostand (1995). “Cyrano de Bergerac”, Talonbooks Limited

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• Deep inside of every human being is this feeling that nothing is ever going to be complete, that the circle will never connect - and that itself is the secret to infinity.

  Pete Townshend

  Frustration, Circles, Feelings

  Richard Barnes, Pete Townshend (1977). “The story of Tommy”

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• The unexplainable thing in nature that makes me feel the world is big fat beyond my understanding – to understand maybe by trying to put it into form. To find the feeling of infinity on the horizon line or just over the next hill.

  Georgia O'Keeffe

  Understanding, Feelings, Trying

  "Some Memories of Drawings". Book by Georgia O'Keeffe, 1974.

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• Awareness is everything. Hallie once pointed out to me that people worry a lot more about the eternity *after* their deaths than the eternity that happened before they were born. But it's the same amount of infinity, rolling out in all directions from where we stand.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  People, Worry, Rolling

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• Qualityless simply means there is no way to discuss it. There is no way to pin it down. It could be anything at any given moment since infinity is not bound even by itself, nor the words that human beings choose to try and talk around it.

  Frederick Lenz

  Mean, Trying, Way

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• For every action, there's an infinity of outcomes. Countless trillions are possible, many milliards are likely, millions might be considered probable, several occur as possibilities to us as observers - and one comes true.

  China Mieville

  Might, Outcomes, Chance

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• But let us remember that we are dealing with infinities and indivisibles both of which transcend our finite understanding, the former on account of their magnitude, the latter because of their smallness.

  Galileo Galilei

  Understanding, Imagine, Latter

  "On the loadstone and magnetic bodies".

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• Slumbering in every human being lies an infinity of possibilities, which one must not arouse in vain. For it is terrible when the whole man resonates with echoes and echoes, none becoming a real voice.

  Elias Canetti

  Real, Lying, Men

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• Seeing that the Senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must have recourse to Reason; there is no reason but must be built upon another reason: so here we are retreating backwards to infinity.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Philosophy, Medicine, Psychology

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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• The human brain cannot encompass total absence. Like infinity, it is simply not something that the organ runs to. The space someone leaves must be filled, so we dream forever of those who are no longer here. Our minds make them live again.

  Anna Funder

  Dream, Running, Space

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• I can be by myself because I'm never lonely, I'm simply alone, living in my heavily populated solitude, a harum-scarum of infinity and eternity, and Infinity and Eternity seem to take a liking to the likes of me.

  Bohumil Hrabal

  Lonely, Solitude, Likes

  Bohumil Hrabal (1992). “Too Loud a Solitude”, p.9, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• AN ARTISTIC DISCOVERY OCCURS EACH TIME AS A NEW AND UNIQUE IMAGE OF THE WORLD, A HIEROGLYPHIC OF ABSOLUTE TRUTH. IT APPEARS AS A REVELATION, AS A MOMENTARY, PASSIONATE WISH TO GRASP INTUITIVELY AND AT A STROKE ALL THE LAWS OF THIS WORLD-ITS BEAUTY AND UGLINESS, ITS COMPASSION AND CRUELTY, ITS INFINITY AND ITS LIMITATIONS.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Art, Unique, Compassion

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• Daydream transports the dreamer outside the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity.

  Gaston Bachelard

  Dreamer, World, Bears

  "What is the origin of the name al-Qaida?" by Giles Foden, www.theguardian.com. August 24, 2002.

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• What are we, the inhabitants of this globe, least among the many that people infinite space? Our minds embrace infinity; the visible mechanism of our being is subject to merest accident.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Life, Space, People

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (2015). “The Last Man”, p.288, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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• I have broken the blue boundary of color limits, come out into the white; beside me comrade-pilots swim in this infinity.

  Kazimir Malevich

  Color, White, Blue

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• What can an eternity of damnation matter to someone who has felt, if only for a second, the infinity of delight?

  Charles Baudelaire

  Damnation, Delight, Matter

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• For time not only moves inexorable forward, as the underlying grid to our personal chronicle, but is manipulated by our psychic needs and natures into various images of timelessness and timeliness. Transient moments suddenly expand, visions of infinity intervene, notes and phrases become outlets of fantasy, escape, recollection, or omen. The music travels on two planes, chronological time and psychological time. Both planes are essential and must be abundantly represented.

  Russell Sherman

  Moving, Psychics, Two

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• In reality, infinity is merely the distance to the heart of a stranger. Eternity is the moment of cognition.

  Yehudi Menuhin

  Distance, Heart, Reality

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