It is a curious fact that in seven centuries of brilliant Italian achievements in the ARTS and SCIENCES we find hardly one ARISTOCRATIC name among the great men. But as soon as the aristocracy was officially abolished by the republic (which incidentally resulted in a doubling of the number of titled persons), two first-class talents emerged: the Princes Giuseppe di Lampedusa and Luchino Visconti.
The only VIRTUE I CLAIM is TRUTH and NONVIOLENCE. I lay no claim to superhuman power. I want none.
Strange I was so poor and now I have a son studying at Harvard.
In the light of the . . . propositions just stated, individual evolution can be understood and all naturalistic and philosophical problems relating to the individual can be resolved. No doubt from metaphysical point of view the concept gives a large range of hypotheses, but from the psychological standpoint, there is no enigma on which it does not shed light.
Or, to quote Francis Warrain: "La Musique esr au Temps ce que la Géométrie est à l'Espace".
Before my SOUL became my council, I was dull, and weak of hearing, reflecting only upon the tumult and the cry. But now, I can listen to SILENCE with SERENITY and can hear in the SILENCE the hymns of ages chanting exaltation to the sky and revealing the SECRETS of ETERNITY.
LOVE is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of seasons.
So muszt du sein, dir kannst du nicht entfliehen so sagten schon Sibyllen, so Propheten; und keine Zeit and Macht zerstückelt geprägte FORM, die lebend sich entwickelt. You must be like this, you cannot escape yourself already the Sibyls said and the prophets; and no time or power disintegrates . impressed FORM which grows in life.- Über allen GIPFELN ist Ruh in allen Wipfeln spürest du kaum einen Hauch. Die Vöglein schweigen im Walde. Warte nur: balde Ruhest du auch . Over all the mountains is peace in all the tree-tops you feel hardly a breath. The little birds are silent in the woods. Wait awhile: soon you too will rest.
- The decline of LITERATURE indicates the decline of a NATION; the two keep pace in their downward trend.
- I have heard myself accused of being an opponent and enemy of MATHEMATICS, which no one can value more highly than I, for it accomplishes the very thing whose achievement has been denied me.
- MUSIC, in the best sense, does not require novelty; nay, the older it is, and the more we are accustomed to it, the greater its effect.
- A man should hear a little MUSIC, read a little POETRY, and see a FINE PICTURE every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the BEAUTIFUL which God has implanted in the human soul.
- The more I think about it, there is something futile, mediocre, even (I am tempted to say) FOPPISH about SPEECH. By contrast, how the GRAVITY of NATURE and her silence STARTLE you."
Let us fathom it, whatever may befall, In this, thy NOTHING, may I find my ALL!.- To one man it (SCIENCE) is the highest thing, a heavenly GODDESS; to another it is a productive and prifient cow, who supplies him with butter.
- Observe, probe, Details unfold. Let nature's SECRETS be stammeringly retold.
- Wä' r nicht das Auge SONNENHAFT, Die SONNE könnt' es nie erblicken. Were the eye not like a SUN it could never behold the sub.
This, I think, is the situation with TIME. We all have, as the basic proof of our consciouness, the sensation of the passing of time. Just as we cannot conceive describing the outside world without reference to its geometrical properties, so we cannot describe it without reference to the passage of time.
Yet is that really the only way of describing the WORLD? Is there really a uniform flow of time within which events occur?
The alternative hypothesis I propose in "Art and Illusion" converged, as I said, with an explanation mooted by JULIAN HOCHBERG. It appeals to the use we can make of order for the discovery of deviations. Take a man in the dark trying to gain information about the unseen environment. He will not grope and thrash at random, but will use every finding to form a hypothesis about the meaning of his encounters, a hypothesis which subsequent gropings will serve to confirm or refute. The first and almost automatic assumption with which he is likely to operate is that hypothesis of a relative stability of objects which must also guide the movements of the lonely organism (or lonelier robot) described above. In a nightmare situation, in which every feature of the environment silently and unpredictably changed shape and place between his gropings, he would be forced to give up. But if the environment exhibits any REGULARITIES to be discovered, his only strategy would be to test it for orders of his own creation, modifying histories in a progression from simple to more complex configurations.
Taking a further clue from Popper's methodology of scientific RESEARCH I argue that: 'WITHOUT some INITIAL SYSTEM, WITHOUT a FIRST GUESS to which we can STICK unless it is DISPROVED, we would indeed make no 'SENSE' of the milliards of ambiguous stimuli that reach us from our environment. In order to learn, we must make MISTAKES, and the most fruitful mistake which nature could have implanted in us would be the assumption of even greater simplicities than we are likely to meet with in this bewildering world of ours. Whatever the fate of the GESTALT school may be in the field of neurology, it may still prove logically right in insisting that the simplicity hypothesis cannot be learnt. It is, indeed, the only condition under which we could learn at all. . . . We have a tendency to probe both the real world and its representations within a hypothesis of regularity which is not abandoned unless it is refuted.
Let EVERY DAY be a dream we can touch. Let every day be a love we can feel. Let every day be a Reason to live.