“How clean the sun when seen in its idea,
Washed in the remotest cleanliness of a heaven
That has expelled us and our images . . .
The death of one god is the death of all.
Let purple Phoebus lie in umber harvest,
Let Phoebus slumber and die in autumn umber....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!
Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought,
That givest to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion,”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown, since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.”
—René Magritte (1898–1967)