In the space of a few minutes the sky turned black and it began to rain. - Primo Levi

The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.

Un recuerdo evocado demasiado a menudo y expresado en forma de historia tiende a convertirse en un estereotipo... cristalizado, perfeccionado, adornado, instalándose en sí mismo en lugar de la memoria pura y dura, y creciendo a sus expensas.

Here at this point I remembered that all languages are fill of images and metaphors whose origin is being lost, together with the art from which they were drawn: horsemanship having declined to the level of an expensive sport, such expressions as ‘belly to the ground’ and ‘taking the bit in ones teeth’ are unintelligible and sound odd […] and even mysterious today. In the same way, since Nature is conservative, we carry in our coccyx what remains of a vanished tail.