How strange it was, I thought, that when the tiny though thousandfold beauties of the Earth disappeared and the immeasurable beauty of outer space rose in the distant quiet splendor of light, man and the greatest number of other creatures were supposed to be asleep! Was it because we were only permitted to catch a fleeting glimpse of those great bodies and then only in the mysterious time of a dream world, those great bodies about which man had only the slightest knowledge but perhaps one day would be permitted to examine more closely? Or was it permitted for the great majority of people to gaze at the starry firmament only in brief, sleepless moments so that the splendor wouldn't become mundane, so that the greatness wouldn't be diminished? . Adalbert Stifter
Some Similar Quotes
  1. What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul - Victor Hugo

  2. Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward. - E.e. Cummings

  3. Yours is the light by which my spirit's born: - you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars. - E.e. Cummings

  4. It's the kind of kiss that inspires stars to climb into the sky and light up the world. - Tahereh Mafi

  5. For millions of years flowers have been producing thorns. For millions of years sheep have been eating them all the same. And it's not serious, trying to understand why flowers go to such trouble to produce thorns that are good for nothing? It's not important,... - Unknown

More Quotes By Adalbert Stifter
  1. Everything that God sends us is beautiful, even though we may not understand it - and we only need to give it some proper thought to see that what God gives is just sheer happiness; the suffering is what we add to it.

  2. Among the books there were also some containing bombast. They didn't try to portray Nature as it is within and outside of man; rather, they tried to make it more beautiful, seeking to elicit certain effects. I turned away from them. If reality isn't sacred...

  3. How great inexperience and innocence is. On the authority of their parents they go to a place where they could meet their death; for the Zirder in flood is very dangerous and, given the ignorance of the children, can be incalculably dangerous. But they know...

  4. Great beauty and youth capture our attention, excite a deep pleasure; however, why shouldn't our souls gaze at a countenance over which the years have passed? Isn't there a story there, one unknown, full of pain or beauty, which pours its reflection into the features,...

  5. My heart was full and uplifted; it seemed that in my soul the question arose whether such things as Art, literature, science encompassed and completed life or whether there was still something in the distance which encompassed it even more completely and filled it with...

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