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Nature is purposeless. Nature simply is. We may find nature beautiful or terrible, but those feelings are human constructions. Such utter and complete mindlessness is hard for us to accept.

Alan Lightman

What I am very disturbed about is this trend of everything happening faster and faster and faster and there being more and more general noise in the world, and less and less time for quiet reflection on who we are, and where we’re going.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Disturb Everything Faster Happen Less Quiet World
Science is an intellectual journey, and to me, it’s not the destination.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Destination Intellectual Journey Science
So many little lives, amounting to nothing. I ask you: What is infinity multiplied by zero? It is hardly worth our discussion.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Amount Little Live Many Nothing So
A man who has owned nothing but a bicycle all of his life feels suddenly wealthy the moment he buys an automobile…But this happy sensation wears off.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Automobile Bicycle Buy Happy Life Nothing Own Sensation Suddenly Wealthy Wear
I think e-mail is representative of our fast food mentality in the United States, where everything has gotten faster and faster, and we’re required to respond to inputs more quickly with less time for thought and reflection.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

E-mail Everything Fast Faster Food Goten Mentality Representative Think
In a world without future, each parting of friends is a death. In a world without future, each loneliness is final.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Death Each Friend Future Part World
The world is moving faster and faster, but where are we going?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Go Move Sister We Where World
I think all tragedies are best told with some humor. You have to relieve the darkness to let the reader get through it. Also, that life has happiness and sadness mixed together.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Humor Some Think Told Tragedy
Although technology is proceeding at a dizzying pace, I believe that the human mind will always have control of itself.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Dixxle Pace Proceed Technology
No one ever expects poetry to sell…
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Ever Expert Poetry Sell
In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time.” “They do not keep clocks in their houses. Instead, they listen to their heartbeats. They feel the rhythms of their moods and desires.”
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Clock House Keep Mechanical Time Two World
In short, the body is a machine, subject to the same laws of electricity and mechanics as an electron or clock.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Body Clock Electricity Future Law Machine Person Same Short
It’s a flow of chemicals and electrical currents, and it developed over millions of years in the process of evolution to aid in the procreation of the species.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Develop Evolution Million Procreation Species Write
To the point that I have to be careful that they don’t take over.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Careful Over Point Take
All other giving is selfish. But he is being selfish a little, isn’t he, by wanting her to love him in return?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Give Little Love Other Return Selfish Want
The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Alone Joy Life Person Share Stuck Tragedy
We often do not see what we do not expect to see.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Expect Often See
Children grow rapidly, forget the centuries-long embrace from their parents, which to them lasted but seconds. Children become adults, live far from their parents, live their own houses, learn ways of their own, suffer pain, grow old.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Century Children Embrace Forget Grow Last Parent Rapidly Second
All of these things can occur with or without God. I do not believe in the existence of God, but I consider myself a spiritual person in the manner I have just described. I call myself a spiritual atheist. I would imagine that many people are spiritual atheists.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Appreciation Consider Existence Larger Nature Spiritual Thing
One cannot walk down an avenue, converse with a friend, enter a building, browse beneath the sandstone arches of an old arcade without meeting an instrument of time.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Arcade Instrument Arch Avenue Beneath Browse Build Converse Down Enter Friend Sandstone Time
I value my correspondence with writers…
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Correspondance Value Writer
I’ve taken a philosophical position on e-mail. Although I think it’s a wonderful communication technology, and it has a lot of good uses, it is abused quite a lot.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

E-mail Philosophy Position Taken
Just didn’t know whether I would finish the book much less for it to come close to what I intended. I think that for any novel you never know exactly how the book is going to turn out…
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Close Come Exact Intend Novel Think
Everyone shares the same fate.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Everyone Fate Same Share
Music is, of course, a universal emotional experience, cutting across cultures and languages. I studied piano for ten years as a child and consider that experience one of the most valuable in my life.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Across Course Culture Cut Emotional Experience Language Music
Despite our strongly felt kinship and oneness with nature, all the evidence suggests that nature doesn’t care one whit about us.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Care Despite Felt Kinship Nature Oneness Strongly Us
People are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Content Contradictory Long People Reason World

Nature is purposeless. Nature simply is. We may find nature beautiful or terrible, but those feelings are human constructions. Such utter and complete mindlessness is hard for us to accept.

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Nature is purposeless. Nature simply is. We may find nature beautiful or terrible, but those feelings are human constructions. Such utter and complete mindlessness is hard for us to accept.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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