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Quote by Cleanthes of Assos

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Hymn to Zeus

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Cleanthes of Assos

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“Such is our intelligence, that intelligence that lives on the illusion of an exponential growth of our stock. Whereas the most probable hypothesis is that the human race merely has at its disposal, today, as it had yesterday, a general fund, a limited stock that redistributes itself across the generations, but is always of equal quantity. In intelligence, we might be said to be infinitely superior, but in thought we are probably exactly the equal of preceding and future generations. There is no privilege of one period over another, nor any absolute progress - there, at least, no inequalities. At species level, democracy rules. This hypothesis excludes any triumphant evolutionism and also spares us all the apocalyptic views on the loss of the 'symbolic capital' of the species (these are the two standpoints of humanism: triumphant or depressed). For if the original stock of souls, natural intelligence or thought at humanity's disposal is limited, it is also indestructible. There will be as much genius, originality and invention in future periods as in our own, but not more - neither more nor less than in former ages. This runs counter to two perspectives that are corollaries of each other: positive illuminism - the euphoria of Artificial Intelligence - and regressive nihilism - moral and cultural depression.”

IntelligenceThoughtOblivionNihilismIlluminism
Book:The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact
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“Local fog in Venice has a name: nebbia. It obliterates all reflections ... and everything that has a shape: buildings, people, colonnades, bridges, statues. Boat services are canceled, airplanes neither arrive, nor take off for weeks, stores are closed and mail ceases to litter one’s threshold. The effect is as though some raw hand had turned all those enfilades inside out and wrapped the lining around the city... the fog is thick, blinding, and immobile... this is a time for reading, for burning electricity all day long, for going easy on self-deprecating thoughts of coffee, for listening to the BBC World Service, for going to bed early. In short, a time for self-oblivion, induced by a city that has ceased to be seen. Unwittingly, you take your cue from it, especially if, like it, you’ve got company. Having failed to be born here, you at least can take some pride in sharing its invisibility...”

ReflectionCoffeeFogOblivionCityItalyVeniceBrodsky
Book:Watermark
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