Zitate von John Cowper Powys

„Die ganze astronomische Welt ist nur ein Phantom, verglichen mit den Kreisen in Kreisen, den Träumen in Träumen der unbekannten Realität.“

—  John Cowper Powys, buch Wolf Solent

John Cowper Powys, Wolf Solent, 1929, aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Richard Hoffmann, Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-40091 X, S. 686
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„Wenn ich mich des Lebens, so dachte er, nicht mit absolut kindlichem Versinken in seine einfachsten Elemente freuen kann, wäre es ebensogut, wenn ich nicht geboren wäre.“

—  John Cowper Powys, buch Wolf Solent

Wolf Solent, 1929, aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Richard Hoffmann, Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-40091 X, S. 693
"If I can't enjoy life," he thought, "with absolute childish absorption in its simplest elements, I might as well never have been born!" - p. 963 archive.org http://archive.org/stream/wolfsolentanovel030662mbp#page/n481/mode/2up

„Tod und Liebe! In diesen beiden allein lag die letzte Würde des Lebens.“

—  John Cowper Powys, buch Wolf Solent

Wolf Solent, 1929, aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Richard Hoffmann, Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-40091 X, S. 684
"Death and Love! In those two alone lay the ultimate dignity of life." - p. 950 archive.org http://archive.org/stream/wolfsolentanovel030662mbp#page/n469/mode/2up

„One needs no strange spiritual faith to worship the earth.“

—  John Cowper Powys

„We philosophize for the same reason that we move and speak and laugh and eat and love. In other words, we philosophize because man is a philosophical animal.… We may be as sceptical as we please. Our very scepticism is the confession of an implicit philosophy.“

—  John Cowper Powys

Quelle: The Complex Vision (1920), Chapter I
Kontext: My answer to the question "Why do we philosophize?" is as follows. We philosophize for the same reason that we move and speak and laugh and eat and love. In other words, we philosophize because man is a philosophical animal.… We may be as sceptical as we please. Our very scepticism is the confession of an implicit philosophy.

„Even the most purely rational minds who find the universe in "pure thought" are driven against their rational will to visualize this "pure thought" and to give it body and form and shape and movement.“

—  John Cowper Powys

Quelle: The Complex Vision (1920), Chapter I
Kontext: One of the curious psychological facts, in connection with the various ways in which various minds function, is the fact that when in these days we seek to visualize, in some pictorial manner, our ultimate view of life, the images which are called up are geometrical or chemical rather than anthropomorphic. It is probable that even the most rational and logical among us as soon as he begins to philosophize at all is compelled by the necessity of things to form in the mind some vague pictorial representation answering to his conception of the universe.
Most minds see the universe of their mental conception as something quite different from the actual stellar universe upon which we all gaze. Even the most purely rational minds who find the universe in "pure thought" are driven against their rational will to visualize this "pure thought" and to give it body and form and shape and movement.

„Love, in spite of all rational knowledge to the contrary, is always in the mood of believing in miracles.“

—  John Cowper Powys

Quelle: The Meaning of Culture (1929), p. 170
Kontext: The influence of friendship upon culture differs from that of love, in that it assumes the basic idiosyncrasies of personal taste to be unalterable. Love, in spite of all rational knowledge to the contrary, is always in the mood of believing in miracles.

„The eternal conflict between love and malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves from darkness to darkness.“

—  John Cowper Powys

Quelle: The Complex Vision (1920), Chapter I
Kontext: This swallowing up of life in nothingness, this obliteration of life by nothingness is what the emotion of malice ultimately desires. The eternal conflict between love and malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves from darkness to darkness.

„We are all creators. We all create a mythological world of our own out of certain shapeless materials.“

—  John Cowper Powys

Quelle: The Meaning of Culture (1929), p. 222
Kontext: Not the wretchedest man or woman but has a deep secretive mythology with which to wrestle with the material world and to overcome it and pass beyond it. Not the wretchedest human being but has his share in the creative energy that builds the world. We are all creators. We all create a mythological world of our own out of certain shapeless materials.

„It is strange how few people make more than a casual cult of enjoying Nature.“

—  John Cowper Powys, buch Glastonbury Romance

Quelle: The Meaning of Culture (1929), p. 178
Quelle: A Glastonbury Romance
Kontext: It is strange how few people make more than a casual cult of enjoying Nature. And yet the earth is actually and literally the mother of us all. One needs no strange spiritual faith to worship the earth.

„Ambition is the grand enemy of all peace.“

—  John Cowper Powys

Quelle: The Meaning of Culture (1929), p. 140

„Every day that we allow ourselves to take things for granted, every day that we allow some little physical infirmity or worldly worry to come between us and our obstinate, indignant, defiant exultation, we are weakening our genius for life.“

—  John Cowper Powys

Quelle: The Meaning of Culture (1929), pp. 134

„If by the time we're sixty we haven't learned what a knot of paradox and contradiction life is, and how exquisitely the good and the bad are mingled in every action we take, and what a compromising hostess Our Lady of Truth is, we haven't grown old to much purpose.“

—  John Cowper Powys

The Art of Growing Old (1944), p. 13

„Man is the animal who weeps and laughs — and writes. If the first Prometheus brought fire from heaven in a fennel-stalk, the last will take it back — in a book.“

—  John Cowper Powys

The Pleasures of Literature (1938), p. 17 <!-- London: Cassell -->

„Man is the animal who weeps and laughs — and writes.“

—  John Cowper Powys

If the first Prometheus brought fire from heaven in a fennel-stalk, the last will take it back — in a book.
The Pleasures of Literature (1938), p. 17

„They are at least proof of the inalienable part played, in the functioning of our complex vision, by sensation as an organ of research. But they have a further interest. They are an illuminating revelation of the inherent character and personal bias of the individual soul who is philosophizing. I suppose to a great many minds what we call "the universe" presents itself as a colossal circle, without any circumference, filled with an innumerable number of material objects floating in some thin attenuated ether. I suppose the centre of this circle with no circumference is generally assumed to be the "self" or "soul" of the person projecting this particular image.“

—  John Cowper Powys

Quelle: The Complex Vision (1920), Chapter I

„Our rulers at the present day, with their machines and their preachers, are all occupied in putting into our heads the preposterous notion that activity rather than contemplation is the object of life.“

—  John Cowper Powys

In Defence of Sensuality (1930), p. 136

„The permanent mental attitude which the sensitive intelligence derives from philosophy is an attitude that combines extreme reverence with limitless skepticism.“

—  John Cowper Powys

Quelle: The Meaning of Culture (1929), pp. 27-28

„No refining of one's taste in matters of art or literature, no sharpening of one's powers of insight in matters of science or psychology, can ever take the place of one's sensitiveness to the life of the earth. This is the beginning and the end of a person's true education.“

—  John Cowper Powys

Quelle: The Meaning of Culture (1929), p. 175