Wednesday, September 12, 2007

The Star Thrower. Loren Eiseley. Significant Sentences 03.

Significant sentences from Loren Eiseley's The Star Thrower, a collection of Eiseley's essays on nature.

Title of the Essay: "Man the Firemaker."

"Man is himself a consuming fire." p. 45.

"Fire was the magic that opened the way for the supremacy of Homo sapiens." p. 47.

"Man is himself a flame." p. 49.

"Man is also Homo duplex...partakes of evil and of good, of god and of man." p. 51.

"Homo duplex must learn that knowledge without greatness of spirit is not enough...or there will remain only his calcined cities and the little charcoal of his bones." p. 52.

Reflections: Man, the firemaker, is himself a flame--the human spirit--that must grow to greatness or all that will remain of civilization will be charcoal from the nuclear cataclysm. We do not take the existence of nuclear arsenals seriously enough.

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