μαρτυρίες 1
“Limit” is called the boundary of every thing, that is, the last point beyond which no part can be found, and the first point within which every part is contained. It is also the form of spatial magnitude or that which possesses magnitude; likewise, the goal of every thing, toward which motion and action are directed (terminus ad quem), and not that from which they proceed (terminus a quo), although at times this name is given to both—the one from which and the one toward which motion tends, that is, to the final cause. The limit is also the substance of every thing and the essence of every thing; for it is the limit of knowledge, and if of knowledge, then also of its object. It is therefore clear that “limit” has as many meanings as “beginning,” and even more, for the beginning is also a kind of limit, but not every limit is a beginning.
Aristotle, Metaphysics
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This world is a closed door. It is an obstacle on the way to the goal. And at the same time—a passage.
Simone Weil, Supernatural Knowledge
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I was the dog of Hades.
The dog of the infernal underworld.
I no longer exist, just as the world of Olympus no longer exists.
In the inhuman human world, only my immortal bite remains—the one I leave to those who have lost someone.
I bite, I gnaw, I howl. I wail today and in eternity. I inflict suffering.
Although—I testify—I myself no longer exist.
I live only in the moment when life disappears.
It is strange and not strange at the same time.
Jarosław Mikołajewski, Separate Myths – Cerberus
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It remains yet to speak of death, so as to leave the matter in its place, where the soul itself meets its limit. Although Epicurus, in his well-known statement, denied that death concerns us: “For what undergoes decomposition,” he says, “is deprived of sensation, and what has no sensation has nothing in common with us.” That which decomposes and has no sensation is not death itself, but the human being who experiences it. Yet he attributes sensation to that whose action is to destroy it. It is therefore the human being who must undergo death—the disintegrator of the body and destroyer of sensation. How absurd it is to say that such a force does not concern humanity!
Tertullian, On the Soul