Eric Franklin

“Young took it for granted that it was very wrong to break loose from reason's chain and that indulgence in pleasure invites the "pall" of death. Blake believed just the opposite. In his picture "sense" is naked and lovely, arms joyously raised and long tresses tossing freely. A small fetter on her right ankle -- hardly more than an ankle bracelet -- is the sole trace of Young's chain, and she is walking easily toward the viewer over gently rolling sunlit hills, not running "savage." What she doesn't know is that a gigantic figure, hands clenched with effort, is about to drop his enormous black cloak over her, smothering her in darkness. Most viewers would have assumed that this looming threat was a personification of death, but more likely Blake thought of it as reason, from whom sense has all too briefly escaped.”
― Leo Damrosch, Eternity's Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake

“Judaism says, “The Messiah is going to come, and that’s the end of history”; Christianity says, “The Messiah is going to come back, and that’s the end of history”; Islam says, “The Messiah came; history is irrelevant.” One”
― Stewart Brand, The Clock Of The Long Now: Time and Responsibility

“The odd American idea that giving money to political campaigns is free speech means that the very rich have far more free speech, and so in effect far more voting power, than other citizens.”
― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

“Eternity is the opposite of a long time.”
― Stewart Brand, The Clock Of The Long Now: Time and Responsibility