Brian Haslett

“Leibniz, perhaps alone with Spinoza, grasped the general direction of modern history. But, unlike his eerily self-sufficient rival, he had a far greater concern with the price that humanity would have to pay for its own progress. He understood that even as science tells us more and more about what everything is, it seems to tell us less and less why; that even as technology reveals utility in all things, it seems to find purpose in nothing; that as humanity extends its powers without limit, it loses its faith in the value of the same beings who exercise that power; and that, in making self-interest the foundation of society, modern humankind finds itself pining for the transcendent goals that give life any interest at all.”
― Matthew Stewart, Courtier and the Heretic

“Stop and consider! life is but a day;
A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way
From a tree’s summit; a poor Indian’s sleep
While his boat hastens to the monstrous steep”
― John Keats, The Complete Poems

“O may these joys be ripe before I die.”
― John Keats, The Complete Poems

“If things originate from God in the same way that properties originate from an essence, it follows that God no more wills the existence of particular things than a circle wills to be round; that all things have a necessary character; that the distinction between God and things is merely apparent or perspectival; and that God, in sum, is the sole substance or essence of the world.”
― Matthew Stewart, Courtier and the Heretic