my life is measured in centuries.
3 months ago • 1 noteOnce when I was collecting specimens under an oak-tree I found, among the other plants and weeds, and of the same size as they, a plant of dark colour with contracted leaves and a straight, rigid stalk. When I made to touch it, it said in a firm voice: ‘Let me alone! I am no weed for your herbarium, like these others to whom nature has given a bare year of life. My life is measured in centuries: I am a little oak-tree.’ — Thus does he whose influence is to be felt across the centuries stand, as a child, as a youth, often still as a man, indeed as a living creature as such, apparently like the rest and as insignificant as they. But give him time and, with time, those who know how to recognize him. He will not die like the rest.
- Arthur Schopenhauer





