Wednesday, March 19, 2014

quotes from Algazel


(via)

8-bit Roundabout

"I have poked into every dark recess, I have made an assault on every problem, I have plunged into every abyss..." --Deliverance from Error

"But if their metaphysical theories had been as cogent and definite as their arithmetical knowledge is, they would not have differed among themselves on metaphysical questions, as they do not differ on the arithmetical." --introduction to Incoherence of the Incoherent

"It were no marvel if the students of the realities underlying the terminology were puzzled by the multiplicity of these terms, and imagined a corresponding multiplicity of ideas. But he to whom the realities beneath the terms are disclosed makes the ideas primary and the terms secondary: while inferior minds take the opposite course." --The Science of Symbolism (from Niche of Lights)

"But if any one of them stands up in a state of genuine ecstasy all the rest should stand up with him, and if any one's turban fall off the others should also lay their turbans down." --Alchemy of Happiness, V.