Abstract Characters

Famous quotes containing the words abstract and/or characters:

    For although memories, of a season, for example,
    Melt into a single snapshot, one cannot guard, treasure
    That stalled moment. It too is flowing, fleeting;
    It is a picture of flowing, scenery, though living, mortal,
    Over which an abstract action is laid out in blunt,
    Harsh strokes.
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    Philosophy is written in this grand book—I mean the universe—
    which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it.
    Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)