Rawsilk: Archive

The nineteen century German biologist Ernst Haeckel is famous for his fantastically illustrated book Artforms of Nature. The copyright for this book from 1904 has now expired and thanks to Wikimedia Commons it is available for everyone to appreciate.

Mar 30, 2010-1 notes

Play

Mar 30, 20103 notes

pareidoliac:

‘Religions are worth much less than the nobility and the courage of the atheisms which they inspire’ #Deleuze

Mar 29, 2010-1 notes

Play

Mar 29, 2010-1 notes

Mar 28, 2010102 notes

Mar 28, 201081 notes

Mar 26, 201014 notes

“The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.” —William James (via rulesformyunbornson) (via proofmathisbeautiful)

Mar 26, 2010396 notes

“To be able to see, something has to be in the way.” —{ Paul Chan } (via olena)

Mar 26, 20102 notes

“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.” —Thoreau (via quantumpossibility)

crashinglybeautiful:

Brave New World novelist Aldous Huxley was diagnosed with cancer in 1960, at which point his health slowly began to deteriorate. On his deathbed in November of 1963, just as he was passing away, Aldous - a man who for many years had been fascinated with the effects of psychedelic drugs since being introduced to mescaline in 1953 - asked his wife Laura to administer him with LSD. She agreed.

The following letter - an incredibly moving, detailed account of Aldous’ last days - was written by Laura just days after her husband’s death and sent to his older brother Julian.

Transcript follows:

from Letters of Note

Mar 25, 201041 notes

“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.” —Thoreau (via quantumpossibility)

Mar 25, 201011 notes

Mar 24, 20101 note

“From the Indo-European root leubh, containing the general sense of loving, desiring and caring all at once, the Germanic tongues evolved bileafa, meaning belief and faith, strong terms indeed and surely the underpinnings of genuine love. It needed only a suffix to become Old English lufu, and then love. Latin used the same root for libere and libet, carrying signals of pleasure, goodwill, freedom and candor. Libido was a more carefully used variant, cautiously indicating strong desire with risks of caprice and immoderation, even lust, brushing against Cupid and cupidity. Sanskrit had lubhyati, he desires, Lithuanian still carries liaupse from the same root, a song of praise. Leubh survives in modern German Liebe, solid, enduring love.
The French je t’aime, irreplaceable, and all the variants of amour emerging from the Latin amo, as robust a source for passionate love as the language has devised, can only be tracked as far as the ancient Latin word amma, believed to be a childhood term at the outset. From amma we have the Latin and French words for love, and also amicus, a friend, a reminder not to lose sight of the old connection between love and friendship. Also two of the most agreeable English words in the language: amiable and amicable.
It is as though the language tried several paths into the meaning of love, then thought twice and corrected itself. Kwep and kwap turned out to be the wrong way to go, blind alleys leading to cupid and vapid. The other roots produced the real idea, the foundation of lasting love: trust, belief, reliance, freedom and desire all combined, something to grow up with, a string of lovely, lovable words.
- Lewis Thomas: Notes Of A Word Watcher (1990)” —

Jamreilly: Lewis Thomas on the Etymology of Love.

(via wildcat2030)

Mar 24, 201032 notes

“Satisfaction is the death of desire.” —Anonymous (via quantumpossibility)

Mar 24, 20107 notes

Mar 23, 201032 notes

Mar 23, 20101,751 notes

Rawsilk

March 2010

91 posts