Ewen Munro > Ewen's Quotes

“Yea, all things live forever, though at times they sleep and are forgotten.”
― H. Rider Haggard, She

“Chaos is what we've lost touch with. This is why it is given a bad name. It is feared by the dominant archetype of our world, which is Ego, which clenches because its existence is defined in terms of control.”
― Terence McKenna

“Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level.”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

“When we are young we are often puzzled by the fact that each person we admire seems to have a different version of what life ought to be, what a good man is, how to live, and so on. If we are especially sensitive it seems more than puzzling, it is disheartening. What most people usually do is to follow one person's ideas and then another's depending on who looms largest on one's horizon at the time. The one with the deepest voice, the strongest appearance, the most authority and success, is usually the one who gets our momentary allegiance; and we try to pattern our ideals after him. But as life goes on we get a perspective on this and all these different versions of truth become a little pathetic. Each person thinks that he has the formula for triumphing over life's limitations and knows with authority what it means to be a man, and he usually tries to win a following for his particular patent. Today we know that people try so hard to win converts for their point of view because it is more than merely an outlook on life: it is an immortality formula.”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

“Dance first. Think later. It's the natural order.”
― Samuel Beckett

“We are all born mad. Some remain so.”
― Samuel Beckett

“Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
― Samuel Beckett

“I can't go on, I'll go on.”
― Samuel Beckett, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader

“Close friends and relatives, while not meaning to do so, often handicap one through “opinions” and sometimes through ridicule, which is meant to be humorous. Thousands of men and women carry inferiority complexes with them all through life, because some well-meaning, but ignorant person destroyed their confidence through “opinions” or ridicule.”
― Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich

“truth is that which makes a people certain, clear, and strong.”
― Martin Heidegger

“Tell me how you read and I'll tell you who you are.”
― Martin Heidegger

“If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself. ”
― Martin Heidegger

“Do not be afraid; our fate
Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“My course is set for an uncharted sea.”
― Dante Alighieri

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, First Part

“Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“We are our choices.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“Shut your eyes and see.”
― James Joyce

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”
― Albert Camus

“Love loves to love love.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”
― Frank Herbert

“You are -- your life, and nothing else.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit

“There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“The road to creativity passes so close to the madhouse and often detours or ends there.”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

“Guilt results from unused life, from the unlived in us.”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

“If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, First Part