Like a man who walks alone and in darkness, I resolved to go slowly, and to use so much circumspection in everything, that if I did not advance speedily, at least I should keep from falling.
René Descartes, from Discourse on Method
Image: "Counting the Stars"
We have been heartened by the ever so consoling and agreeable idea that people may speak to one another about us too, when we shall no longer be alive; we have been encouraged by hearing from the mouths of a few of our contemporaries a certain voluptuous murmur that suggests what may be said of us by those happy and educated men in whose interests we have sacrificed ourselves, whom we esteem and whom we love, even though they have not yet been born. [...] These people do not realize that they occupy only a single point on our globe and that they will endure only a moment in its existence. To this point and to this moment they would sacrifice the happiness of future ages and that of the entire race.
Denis Diderot, from the entry "Encylopédie"
Image: "In My Other Life"
Reason is to the philosopher what grace is to the Christian. Grace causes the Christian to act, reason the philosopher.
Other men are carried away by their passions, their actions not being preceded by reflection: these are the men who walk in darkness. On the other hand, the philosopher, even in his passions, acts only after reflection; he walks in the dark, but with a torch.
Cesar Chesneau Dumarsais, from the entry "Philosopher" in the Encyclopédie
Image: "The Gravity of Fear"
Note: All images are by the artist Temporary Peace.
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