We Are Fundamentally Inclined To Maintain That The Falsest Opinions (to Which Synthetic Judgements A

We are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which synthetic judgements a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us; that without a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of reality with the purely imagined world of the absolute and immutable, without a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not live—that the renunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation of life, negation to life. To recognize untruth as a condition of life; that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil. Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Only through pure contemplation can Ideas be comprehended; and the nature of genius consists in pre-eminent capacity for such contemplation. Now, as this requires that a man should entirely forget himself and the relations in which he stands, genius is simply the completest objectivity, i.e., the objective tendency of the mind, as opposed to the subjective, which is directed to one’s own self — in other words, to the will. Thus genius is the faculty of continuing in the state of pure perception, of losing oneself in perception, and of enlisting in this service the knowledge which originally existed only for the service of the will; that is to say, genius is the power of leaving one’s own interests, wishes, and aims entirely out of sight, thus of entirely renouncing one’s own personality for a time, so as to remain pure knowing subject, clear vision of the world; and this not merely at moments, but for a sufficient length of time, and with sufficient consciousness, to enable one to reproduce by deliberate art what has thus been apprehended. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation

Galileo conceives of movement itself in mathematical terms, and particularly the movement that appears to be the most changeable of all: the falling of terrestrial bodies. In doing so, he uncovered, beyond the variations of position and speed, the mathematical invariant of movement - that is to say, acceleration. From that point on, the world becomes exhaustively mathematizable - the mathematizable no longer designates an aspect of the world that is essentially immerged within the non-mathematizable (i.e. a surface or trajectory, which is merely the surface or trajectory of a moving body), it now indicates a world capable of autonomy - a world wherein bodies as well as their movements can be described independently of their sensible qualities.

-Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude

The effect of our knowledge rather ought to be, first, to teach us reverence and fear; and, secondly, to induce us, under its guidance and teaching, to ask every good thing from him, and, when it is received, ascribe it to him. For how can the idea of God enter your mind without instantly giving rise to the thought, that since you are his workmanship, you are bound, by the very law of creation, to submit to his authority?–that your life is due to him?–that whatever you do ought to have reference to him

-John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

When religion becomes artificial, art has a duty to rescue it. Art can show that the symbols which religions would have us believe literally true are actually figurative. Art can idealize those symbols, and so reveal the profound truths they contain. -Richard Wagner, Religion and Art

Because it moves in a circle, that is, moves completely and permanently in the simplest motion, the moon does not fall earth-ward. This circular motion is in itself completely indepen-dent of anything outside itself—for in- stance, from the earth as center. But, by way of contrast, to anticipate, in modern thought circular motion is understood only in such a way that a perpetual attracting force from the center is necessary for its formation and preservation. - Martin Heidegger, Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics