In the small circle of pain within the skull You still shall tramp and tread one endless round... Of thought, to justify your action to yourselves, Weaving a fiction which unravels as you weave, Pacing forever in the hell of make-believe Which never is belief: this is your fate on earth And we must think no further of you.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-m...inded people than thoughtless.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) has often been compared to Socrates, and there are some striking resemblances--the trances of conc...entration they went into, the sharp questioning of those who professed to know, the search for purity of language and life. But the contrast is sharper than any such comparisons. Wittgenstein is a powerful example of the separation of modern philosophy from ordinary life, a separation he deeply regretted but could do little to remedy. Unlike Socrates, who engaged citizens in philosophical self-examination at public meeting places, Wittgenstein could not bring himself, very often, to meet with a small circle of students. He feared that not even those select Cambridge philosophers could understand him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I was continuing to shrink. To become, what? The infinitesimal? What was I? Still a human being, or was I the man of the future?...... So close, the infinitesimal and the infinite, but suddenly I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet, like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens. The universe, worlds beyond number, God's silver tapestry spread across the night. And in that moment I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had thought in terms of man's own limited dimension. I had presumed upon nature. That existence begins and ends is man's conception, not nature's, and I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away and in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation--it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest--I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist. Even athletes need to sleep.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outwards to new and larger ...circles, and that without end.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Rome, like Washington, is small enough, quiet enough, for strong personal intimacies; Rome, like Washington, has its democratic co...urt and its entourage of diplomatic circle; Rome, like Washington, gives you plenty of time and plenty of sunlight. In New York we have annihilated both.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mrs. Small went to the kitchen for her pocketbook And came back to the living room with a peculiar look... And the coffee pot. Pocketbook. Pot. Pot. Pocketbook.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »