Grassman on "ars longa, vita brevis"

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For I have every confidence that the effort I have applied to the science 
reported upon here, which has occupied a considerable span of my lifetime and 
demanded the most intense exertions of my powers, is not to be lost. ... a time 
will come when it will be drawn forth from the dust of oblivion and the ideas 
laid down here will bear fruit. ... some day these ideas, even if in an altered 
form, will reappear and with the passage of time will participate in a lively 
intellectual exchange. For truth is eternal, it is divine; and no phase in the 
development of truth, however small the domain it embraces, can pass away 
without a trace. It remains even if the garments in which feeble men clothe it 
fall into dust.

Hermann Grassmann, in the foreword to the Ausdehnungslehre of 1862,
translated by Lloyd Kannenberg.

(found via "The Grassmann Algebra Book")