Pierre T de Chardin - Collected Quotes

"Is evolution a theory, a system or a hypothesis? It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforth if they are to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow." (Pierre T de Chardin, "The Phenomenon of Man", 1955)

"Let us keep the discoveries and indisputable measurements of physics. […] A more complete study of the movements of the world will oblige us, little by little, to turn it upside down; in other words, to discover that if things hold and hold together, it is only by reason of complexity, from above." (Pierre T de Chardin, "The Phenomenon of Man", 1955)

"Religion and science are the two conjugated faces of phases of one and the same act of complete knowledge - the only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution so as to contemplate, measure and fulfill them." (Pierre T de Chardin, "The Phenomenon of Man", 1955)

"Science, philosophy and religion are bound to converge as they draw nearer to the whole." (Pierre T de Chardin, "The Phenomenon of Man", 1955)

"The time has come to realise that an interpretation of the universe - even a positive one - remains unsatisfying unless it covers the interior as well as the exterior of things; mind as well as matter. The true physics is that which will, one day, achieve the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the world." (Pierre T de Chardin, "The Phenomenon of Man", 1955)

"The world can no more have two summits than a circumference can have two centres." (Pierre T de Chardin, "The Divine Milieu", 1960)

"Historically, the stuff of the universe goes on becoming concentrated into ever more organized forms of matter." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"Life does not work by following a single thread, nor yet by fits and starts. It pushes forward its whole network at one and the same time." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"To discover and know has always been a deep tendency of our nature." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"To our critical eyes, the threads of which the past is woven are, by nature, endless and indivisible. Scientifically speaking, we cannot grasp the absolute beginning of anything: everything extends backwards to be prolonged by something else." (Pierre T de Chardin)

"What is imponderable in the world is greater than what we can handle." (Pierre T de Chardin)