it is a matter of teaching others how to walk along invisible wires, stretched out in darkness, trying to penetrate an unknown dimension. p. 13

giulio carlo argan in preface:
he applied his understanding of growth and motion, won during nature study, to the realm of geometry.  he investigated basic forms from the same point of view as plants and living creatures:  according to their faculty of motion, kinetic changes, simple forms assume a variety of personalities -for example:  ‘the death of the triangle.’  in his thinking geometrical abstraction is humanised.  an active exchange goes on between the two fundamental modes of experience, the constructive-geometrical and the metaphysical.  ‘the possibilities become numberless and infinitely variable.’ p. 37

death…puts right whatever did not fulfill itself in life.  i consider the yearning for death not as a renunciation but as a struggle for perfection. p.41