The Simplest Questions Are The Hardest To

The Bedrock Of Doubt Is The Total Nothingness Of Death. Death Is A Leveler, Not Because Everybody Dies, But Because Nobody Understands What Death Means.

Horace, In A Particularly Boastful Mood, Once Said His Verse Would Last As Long As The Vestal Virgins Kept Going Up The Capitoline Hill To Worship At The Temple Of Jupiter. But Horace's Poetry Has Lasted Longer Than Jupiter's Religion, And Jupiter Himself Has Only Survived Because He Disappeared Into Literature.

Those Who Are Concerned With The Arts Are Often Asked Questions, Not Always Sympathetic Ones, About The Use Or Value Of What They Are Doing. It Is Probably Impossible To Answer Such Questions Directly, Or At Any Rate To Answer The People Who Ask Them.

Science Begins With The World We Have To Live In, Accepting Its Data And Trying To Explain Its Laws. From There, It Moves Toward The Imagination: It Becomes A Mental Construct, A Model Of A Possible Way Of Interpreting Experience. The Further It Goes In This Direction, The More It Tends To Speak The Language Of Mathematics, Which Is Really One Of The Languages Of The Imagination, Along With Literature And Music. Art, On The Other Hand, Begins With The World We Construct, Not With The World We See. It Starts With The Imagination, And Then Works Toward Ordinary Experience.

A Snowflake Is Probably Quite Unconscious Of Forming A Crystal, But What It Does May Be Worth Study Even If We Are Willing To Leave Its Inner Mental Processes Alone.