Hypersanity Quotes

“Søren Kierkegaard: Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion—and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion… while truth again reverts to a new minority.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“Many people are unable to let their minds wander off the beaten path for fear of the monsters that may be lurking in the undergrowth. If you meet a monster, take the chance to say ‘hello’.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“Rather than by the rule book, all things ought to be judged by whether they do more good than harm to the world. This is the true meaning of equity.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“The principal benefit of studying philosophy is that is makes everything else seem easy, or shallow, or nonsensical.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“To show someone something that you know is an act of love that is not practised nearly enough.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“Teaching is very much like pruning: you need to know when and where and how to make the cuts, and, of course, why.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“Knowledge we find in articles, books, and courses, but wisdom we find only in our own hearts.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“Much of the particularity of a language is extra-lexical, built into the syntax and grammar of the language and virtually invisible to native speakers. English, for example, restricts the use of the present perfect tense (‘has been’, ‘has read’) to subjects who are still alive, marking a sharp grammatical divide between the living and the dead, and, by extension, between life and death. But of course, as an English speaker, you already knew that, at least subconsciously. Language is full of built-in assumptions and prejudices.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“There seems to be an important relationship between language and thought: I often speak—or write, as I am doing right now—to define or refine my thinking on a particular topic, and language is the scaffolding by which I arrive at my more subtle or syncretic thoughts.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“An intuition involves a coming together of loosely linked facts, concepts, experiences, thoughts, and feelings, and we can encourage intuition by tearing down the psychological barriers that are keeping them apart. If intuition involves stepping back from our person, so does wisdom, insight, imagination, and even reason. What usually gets in the way of both reason and non-rational forms of cognition is not stupidity as such, or feeble-mindedness, but fear and the thing that fear protects, that is, our self-esteem, our sense of self, our ego. If we are to unleash our full cognitive and human potential, we need to love life more than we fear it, we need to suppress or destroy our ego, to commit metaphorical suicide—which will be the work of a life well spent.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“There are only two solutions to science: more science, or wisdom.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“If people are so resistant to wisdom, it is because the thing that will save them will also destroy them.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“If science aims at alleviating ignorance, art aims at alleviating idiocy, and there is far more idiocy in the world.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“It's interesting how having things to do is largely a matter of whether you think you have things to do.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“Emotional tears (as opposed to reflexive tears such as those from chopping onions) serve a number of social functions such as emphasizing the depth and sincerity of our emotions, and attracting attention, sympathy, and support in times of danger, distress, or need. But they also serve an important psychological function, which is to tell us that a particular problem or situation actually means a lot to us, and that we need to make the time and effort to address or at least process it—opening out, in due course, on a healthier attitude or clearer perspective. As markers of strong emotion, emotional tears signal moments of existential importance in our lives, from sharing a first kiss to grieving the loss of our partner. Our tears reveal us to ourselves, and, in so doing, make us more like ourselves—which is why we should be encouraging and interpreting them rather than holding them back.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking

“If we are to live, we must first learn to die.”
― Neel Burton, Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking