Quotes

A running list of quotes I like:

Joseph Campbell

“Love thine enemies because they are the instruments of your destiny”

“One can experience an unconditional affirmation of life only when one has accepted death, not as a contrary to life but as an aspect of life”

Robert Heinlein
“A desire not to butt into other people’s business is eighty percent of all human wisdom.” – Stranger in a Strange Land

“Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes the greater the love, the greater the jealousy”

Christopher Hitchens

“Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake. The grave will supply plenty of time for silence.”

Michaelangelo

“If life was found to be agreeable, then so should death be. It comes from the hand of the same master.”

Helen Keller

“Live is either a daring adventure or it is nothing at all”

Karl Hess

“Each person spends a lifetime engaged in a single overarching project: designing his or her own life. To be this thing, this person, to do it just the way you want, and to be satisfied with it, that is the major artistic endeavor and creation of our individual lives.”

“I don’t believe it is possible to establish a rational basis for liberty. It’s wholly aesthetic. I can’t justify it beyond that. You can establish a rational basis for not stepping off a three-story building, but not for social activities such as the way you like to live.”

“I take it all in good humor and, in good humor, savor living mostly on the edge”

“Freedom, to Mother, was simply being human to the hilt: being absolutely responsible for your own choices in life, questioning authority, being honest in all dealings with others.”

“‘Question authority’ is my guiding slogan.”

“If liberty is worth dying for, it surely should be worth inconveniencing a few bureaucrats for.”

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“The inside jokes weren’t jokes anymore. They had become stories.”

“What if then need the arms or something like that? You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love.”

Plato

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light”

Rachel Carson
“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life”

Jack Kerouac

“Sometimes I’d get mad because things didn’t work out so well, I’d spoil a flapjack, or slip in the snowfield while getting water, or one time my shovel went sailing down into the gorge, and I’d be so mad I’d want to bite the mountaintops and would come in the shack and kick the cupboard and hurt my toe. But let the mind beware, though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious.”

Shantaram

“The past reflects eternally two mirrors – the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn’t do or say”

“The world and I aren’t on speaking terms. The world keeps trying to win me back but it doesn’t work. I guess I’m not the forgiving type.”

Days of War, Nights of Love

“The moral of this story is the moral of all anarchist stories: accept only the rules and values which make sense to you and really are in your best interest. Figure out what’s right for you and don’t let anybody tell you different—but also, make an effort to understand where others are coming from, and evaluate their actions by your own standards, not according to some standardized norm.”

“We should, rather, recognize the patterns of submission and domination in our own lives, and, to the best of our ability, break free of them. We should put the anarchist ideal – no masters, no slaves – into effect in our daily lives however we can. Every time one of us remembers not to accept at face value the authority of the powers that be, each time one of us is able to escape the system of domination for a moment (whether it is by getting away with something forbidden by a teacher or boss, relating to a member of a different social stratum as an equal, etc.) that is a victory for the individual and a blow against hierarchy”

John F. Kennedy

“If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitable”

Henry David Thoreau

“If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.”

The Dark Tower – Stephen King

“You needn’t die happy when your day comes, but you must die satisfied, for you have lived your life from beginning to end.”

William Lloyd Garrison

“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — and I WILL BE HEARD.”

H.L. Mencken

“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress – Robert Heinlein

“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson

“It was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country – but only for those with true grit. And we were chock full of that.”

“Las Vegas is a society of armed masturbators/gambling is the kicker here/sex is extra/weird trip for high rollers…”

“No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted.”

“The important thing is to cover this story on its own terms”

“In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught.”

On Writing – Stephen King

“Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around.”

The Ultimate Journey: Consciousness and the Mystery of Death – Stanislav Grof

“As the emotional focus shifts from the past and future to the present moment, people are more able to enjoy the simple and everyday circumstances of life, such as food, lovemaking, nature, and music. Spirituality also emerges from this process, spirituality of a universal and mystical nature that is very authentic and convincing because it is based on deep personal experience.”