Science, dropped

George Steiner on the second volume of Edward Timms' study of Karl Kraus.

(Compare to the last line of William Slothrop's hymn, on the last page of Gravity's Rainbow.)

'Please, God, make me a stone' - a simile here would be a mistake, would drain the prayer of its gravity.

'plainly put, man as culture-consumer is, in an insidious way, dissatisfied with man as culture-producer'

'To have a philosophical mind is to participate, by knowledge, in the life and being of many by not treating oneself as a fixed individual, one and unchanging.'

(probably misquoted)

Needless to say: when preoccupied with worry about understanding everything one in fact comes to understand very little.

Some nights, I am overwhelmed by the necessity of understanding everything there is. It is as if there is too much air to breathe and I have to catch up. But there is not just too much; there is more than I can ever breathe.

If I were diligent I would go back to these thoughts someday, to think through them properly.