Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom? I am much afraid that nature is itself only a first custom, as custom is a second nature.
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.
The only thing that consoles us for our miseries is diversion. And yet it is the greatest of our miseries. For it is that above all which prevents us thinking about ourselves and leads us imperceptibly to destruction.
Blaise Pascal·1660When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the small space which I fill, or even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified, and wonder that I am here rather than there, for there is no reason why here rather than there, or now rather than then. Who has set me here? By whose order and design have this place and time been destined for me?—Memoria hospitis unius diei prætereuntis. It is not well to be too much at liberty. It is not well to have all we want. How many kingdoms know nothing of us! The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me.
Lao Tzu·500 BCThe space between heaven and earth is like a bellows: empty, yet inexhaustible. The more it is worked, the more it yields. Many words count for little — hold fast to the center.
Meister Eckhart·1300Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.
