“Pure, existential space was regularly winking at me, each time in a more impressive manner, and this sensation of total freedom attracted me so powerfully that I painted some monochrome surfaces just to 'see,' to 'see' with my own eyes what existential sensibility granted me: absolute freedom!” EyeMy OwnSpacePureAbsolutesSurfaceGrantedSensationsExistentialSensibilityImpressiveAbsolute FreedomWinkingMonochrome Author:Yves Klein
“Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs. The heaviest charge we can bring against the general texture of society is that it is commonplace. Our fancied superiority to others is in some one thing which we think most of because we excel in it, or have paid most attention to it; whilst we overlook their superiority to us in something else which they set equal and exclusive store by.” ThinkingMenHardLevelsAttentionWiseImagineOne ThingFoolMetsEqualPaidAbsolutesSurfaceStoresGiantsSuperiorityExclusiveCommonplaceTextureDwarfs Author:William Hazlitt
“There is a brain mechanism that works to identify colour differences directly, without first identifying the absolute colour of each surface. So on my view there is no reason to suppose anything like ten million colour responses to surface viewed singly.” FirstsReasonDifferencesViewsBrainMillionsTenAbsolutesResponseSurfaceColourNo ReasonMechanismIdentifying Author:David Papineau
“If neuroscientific research shows that those mechanisms only contain comparative information about colour differences, and have 'thrown away' more fine-grained information about the absolute colours of single surfaces, then that would support my position, in a way that just introspecting our colour experiences can't.” IfsWayShowsDifferencesSupportInformationPositionFineResearchAbsolutesSurfaceColourThrownMechanismScientific Research Author:David Papineau
“Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.” SchoolUniverseLinesKnowledgeStudyExampleAbsolutesMathematicsObviousSurfaceSuggestionsSpectacularPsychedelicStraight LinesContinuum Author:R. Buckminster Fuller
“The Wise Man believes profoundly in silence - the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence - not a leaf, as it were, astire on the tree, not a ripple upon the surface of the shinning pool-his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life. Silence is the cornerstone of character.” MenMindBelieveCharacterBodySpiritPerfectExistenceSilenceAttitudeWiseTreeHe ManBalanceIdealsAbsolutesCalmStormSurfacePreservesNativePoolNative AmericanLeafsSilence IsSageEquilibriumRippleCornerstonesNative American WisdomGreat SpiritNative AmericaPoiseNative American IndianGreat Native AmericanNative American EarthIndian WisdomNative Wisdom Author:Charles Alexander Eastman
“All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, contain an element of the eternal and an element of the transitory - of the absolute and of the particular. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction creamed from the general surface of different beauties. The particular element in each manifestation comes from the emotions: and just as we have our own particular emotions, so we have our own beauty.” DoeDifferentFormJusticeEmotionBeautyParticularElementsEternalEternityAbsolutesSurfaceManifestationAbstractionTransitoryEternal BeautyDifferent Beauty Author:Charles Baudelaire