13 February 2020

On Equilbrium (1850-1874)

"Everything lives by movement, everything is maintained by equilibrium, and harmony results from the analogy of contraries; this law is the form of forms. (Eliphas Levi, Transcendental Magic, 1854)

"Living things have no inertia, and tend to no equilibrium." (Thomas H Huxley, "On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences", 1854)


"[...] the small is great, the great is small; all is in equilibrium in necessity […]" (Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, 1862

"Nature! […] She creates needs because she loves action. Wondrous! that she produces all this action so easily. Every need is a benefit, swiftly satisfied, swiftly renewed. - Every fresh want is a new source of pleasure, but she soon reaches an equilibrium." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Nature, 1870)

"We cannot prevent equilibrium from producing its effects. We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones." (Jules Verne, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", 1870)

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