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About this quote

What does it mean?
The idea of God or infinity represents an attempt to conceive of something impossible.
In plain terms
Concepts like God are attempts to grasp the impossible.
What can you take from it?
Recognize the limits of human understanding.

Where it applies

  • philosophical questioning
  • theological debate
  • existential thought

Putting it to work

  • study
  • debate
  • reflection

Questions to consider

  • What ideas do you struggle to grasp?
  • Is it important to understand the infinite?

Another view

It reduces spiritual concepts to mere failed attempts.

More from Edgar Allan Poe

  1. No man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter ... than you and I; and all religion ... is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination …

    Permalink to quote #94
  2. The pioneers and missionaries of religion have been the real cause of more trouble and war than all other classes of mankind.

    Permalink to quote #96
  3. Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.

    Permalink to quote #97

Related quotes

  1. Hay un concepto que es el corruptor y el desatinador de los otros. No hablo del mal cuyo limitado imperio es la etica; hablo del infinito.

    Jorge Luis BorgesJorge Luis Borges quote #46
  2. God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.

    VoltaireVoltaire quote #97
  3. There are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God.

    Simone WeilSimone Weil quote #6