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You imagine that what you can't understand is either spiritual or does not exist. The conclusion is quite wrong; rather there are obviously a million things in the universe that we would need a million quite different organs to understand. For example, I perceive by my senses what makes a magnet point north, what makes tides rise and fall, and what becomes of an animal after death. Your people are not proportioned to perceive such miracles, just as someone blind from birth cannot imagine the beauty of a landscape, the colors of a painting or the shadings of an iris. He will imagine them as something palpable, edible, audible or olfactory. Likewise, if I were to explain to you what I perceive by the senses you do not have, you would interpret it as something that could be heard, seen, touched, smelled or tasted; but it is not like that.

Cyrano de Bergerac#21

PerceptionUniverseHumilityLimitsSenses

About this quote

What does it mean?
Many things exist beyond human perception just as blind people cannot imagine visual beauty.
In plain terms
We cannot understand everything because our senses are limited.
What can you take from it?
Accept that there is more to the universe than you can perceive.

Where it applies

  • debating unknown phenomena
  • philosophical inquiry
  • scientific humility

Putting it to work

  • question assumptions about reality
  • acknowledge sensory limits

Questions to consider

  • What cannot your senses tell you?
  • How do you know what exists?

Another view

The analogy implies human senses are the only way to perceive truth.

More from Cyrano de Bergerac

  1. Even though they, themselves, were material beings, they could show themselves to us only by taking on bodies that our senses were able to perceive.

    Permalink to quote #20
  2. I felt the body I was occupying so weakened that all its organs were shutting down. I asked the way to the hospital, and as soon as I walked in I discovered th…

    Permalink to quote #22
  3. To make myself visible as I am now, when I sense that the cadaver that I occupy is almost worn out or that the organs are no longer working very well, I breath…

    Permalink to quote #19

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