Stellar

“In solving problems, technology creates new problems, and we seem, as in Through the Looking-Glass, to have to keep running faster and faster to stay where we are. The question is then whether technical progress actually "gets anywhere" in the sense of increasing the delight and happiness of life.”
― Alan W. Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

“[...] the absence of sensation can be devastating. But an absence of pain – the loudest of our sensations – sounds like a blessing, not a curse. Pain screams its way into our consciousness, blotting out everything else. The blinding sear of stubbing one’s toe, cracking one’s head, or cutting your finger, elbows all other sensations and senses out of the way, demanding immediate attention and action.”
― Guy Leschziner, Man Who Tasted Words

“Did I know this brutality was wrong? Even that first time, when my brother was the victim? I have asked myself a thousand times, and the answer is always the same: of course. That day was the hardest, because I could have said no. Every time after that, it became easier, because if I didn't do it again, I would be reminded of that first time I did not say no. Repeat the same action over and over again, and eventually it will feel right. Eventually, there isn't even any guilt.

What I mean to tell you, now, is that the same truth holds. This could be you, too. You think never. You think, not I. But at any given moment, we are capable of doing what we least expect. I always knew what I was doing, and to whom I was doing it. I knew, very well. Because in those terrible, wonderful moments, I was the person everyone wanted to be.”
― Jodi Picoult, The Storyteller

“I seem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time—a rare, complicated, and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe of biological evolution, where the wave of life bursts into individual, sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment only to vanish forever. Under such conditioning it seems impossible and even absurd to realize that myself does not reside in the drop alone, but in the whole surge of energy which ranges from the galaxies to the nuclear fields in my body. At this level of existence “I” am immeasurably old; my forms are infinite and their comings and goings are simply the pulses or vibrations of a single and eternal flow of energy.”
― Alan W. Watts, The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are