A Quote by W. G. Sebald

Otherwise, all I remember of the denizens of the Nocturama is that several of them had strikingly large eyes, and the fixed inquiring gaze found in certain painters and philosophers who seek to penetrate the darkness which surrounds us purely by means of looking and thinking.
Although our eyes can not penetrate the darkness of the future, scientific geopolitical analysis enables us to make certain predictions.
Poets, not otherwise than philosophers, painters, sculptors, and musicians, are, in one sense, the creators, and, in another, the creations, of their age.
The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
Where reasons are given, we don't need faith. Where only darkness surrounds us, we have no means for seeing except by faith.
The faults of which we ask you [God] the remittance, it is you who make us commit them; the traps of which we implore you to deliver us, it is you who has set them for us; and the Satan which surrounds us, this Satan, it is you.
In our daily life a certain way of thinking makes us happy, and a certain way of thinking makes us unhappy. In other words, there are certain states of mind which bring us problems, and they can be removed.
By mere burial man arrives not at bliss; and in the future life, throughout its whole infinite range, they will seek for happiness as vainly as they sought it here, who seek it in aught else than that which so closely surrounds them here - the Infinite
By mere burial man arrives not at bliss; and in the future life, throughout its whole infinite range, they will seek for happiness as vainly as they sought it here, who seek it in aught else than that which so closely surrounds them here - the Infinite.
There are certain things in which one is unable to believe for the simple reason that he never ceases to feel them. Things of this sort - things which are always inside of us and in fact are us and which consequently will not be pushed off or away where we can begin thinking about them - are no longer things; they, and the us which they are, equals A Verb; an IS.
The idea that somehow "no self, no problem"- I don't exist because I don't have a self- would be a mistaken understanding. However, the selflessness teaching is not that hard to understand. What it means is a type of self that people feel they have, like a fixed, unchanging identity. Either they know they have it, or for some, they feel they need to seek it, and possibly have an experience where they feel like they found something. That type of fixed, unchanging, essential self, or absolute self doesn't exist. That's what "no self" means.
All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible.
One of the pleasures of looking at the world through mathematical eyes is that you can see certain patterns that would otherwise be hidden.
Life isn't always easy but so long as we have hope that we will find someone to help us through the darkness things will always get better. When we find that person, life suddenly explodes and darkness turns into a riot of colour. We're always looking for someone, what we need to remember is that someone is out there looking for us too.
The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.
Teaching is not the mere imparting of information but the cultivation of an inquiring mind which will penetrate into the question of what is religion and not merely accept the established religions, churches, and rituals.
But they need to worry and betray time with urgencies false and otherwise, purely anxious and whiny, their souls really won't be at peace unless they can latch to an established and proven worry and having once found it they assume facial expressions to fit and go with it, which is, you see, unhappiness, and all the time it all flies by them and they know it and that too worries them no end.
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