Pavel Florensky

“Everything passes, but everything remains. This is a cherished thought for me, that nothing goes away for ever, nothing is lost, but somehow, somewhere, stays. Its worth remains, although we cease to perceive it. And our labors, even if everyone forgot about them, remain and somehow give their fruits. And for this reason, although I regret the past, there is a living sense of its eternity. I did not part with them eternally, but only in time. And it seems to me that all people, whatever they might think, feel the same in the depth of their souls. Without this, life would become senseless and empty.”
― Pavel Florensky, Letters from the Gulag

“The Egyptian world-view and Egyptian art were not tied to a single point of view or to a particular moment of time. Individuality in applied art does not equal truthfulness of being. Anaxagoras and Democritus were the first to clarify the laws of perspective and scenography (Vitruvius), explaining how rays of light must be transmitted in order to pass from a picture onto the retina as from a phenomenon. Thus, perspective was known in early antiquity. But it was not used because the task of painting was not to duplicate reality but to provide a more profound understanding of it.”
― Pavel Florensky, At the Crossroads of Science & Mysticism: On the Cultural-Historical Place and Premises of the Christian World-Understanding