Saturday, August 8, 2009

Duly quoted

I ran across this today:
Eternity is a child playing checkers.
---Heraclitus (535-475 B.C.)
in Pickover, Archimedes to Hawking

and it reminded me of this gem:
Eternity is very long, especially towards the end.
--Woody Allen

Something about Woody Allen's wit really makes me smile. As long as we are on the subject, I should mention this too:

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
---William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence" (1803)

I thank Jacob Bronowski for that one. His book "The Ascent of Man," and the video, had a huge influence on me when I was young (yes, long ago). I have the series on DVD from here. Except for a weird distortion of the music in the beginning (maybe the remaster is better), it is still just as powerful for me today as it was then.