Timothy > Timothy's Quotes

“Inevitably it follows that anyone with an independent mind must become 'one who resists or opposes an authority or established convention': a rebel. ...And if enough people come to agree with—and follow—the REBEL, we now have a DEVIL. Until, of course, still more people agree. And then, finally, we have ... GREATNESS.”
― Nicholas Tharcher, Rebels & Devils; A Tribute to Christopher S. Hyatt

“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings -- always darker, emptier and simpler.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
― Albert Camus

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”
― Albert Camus

“Life has no meaning a priori… It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of Communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter; Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French radicals and German police spies.

Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as Communistic by its opponents in power? Where the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of Communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?

Two things result from this fact.

I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be in itself a power.

II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Specter of Communism with a Manifesto of the party itself.”
― Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

“Chaos is the score upon which reality is written.”
― Henry Miller

“Love is a haunting melody that I have never mastered, and I fear I never will.”
― William S. Burroughs

“Solitude was my only consolation - deep, dark, deathlike solitude.”
― Mary W. Shelley

“once I falsely hoped to meet the beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding.”
― Mary Shelley

“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel...”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“Satan has his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and detested.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom.”
― Slavoj Žižek, Welcome to the Desert of the Real: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates

“In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.”
― Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation

“We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That's it. Conversation and violence. And faith is a conversation stopper.”
― Sam Harris

“Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.”
― Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

“good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws”
― Plato

“Suffering brings experience.”
― Aeschylus

“How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!”
― Brad Warner, Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality

“When something dies is the greatest teaching.”
― Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”
― Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

“If you are falling....dive.”
― Joseph Campbell

“All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.”
― Joseph Campbell

“Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.

Love is a friendship set to music.”
― Joseph Campbell

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.”
― Erich Fromm