Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane.
One of the reasons why so few of us ever act, instead of react, is because we are continually stifling our deepest impulses.
For there is only one great adventure and that is inward toward the self, and for that, time nor space nor even deeds matter.
Think only what is right there, what is right under your nose to do. It's such a simple thing - that's why people can't do it.
I don't know whether you've ever had a woman eat an apple while you were doing it. Well, you can imagine how that affects you.
Hitler is no worse, nay better, in my opinion, than the other lugs. He makes the German mistake of being tactless, that's all.
Part of the act of creating is in discovering your own kind. They are everywhere. But don't look for them in the wrong places.
Every man is working out his destiny in his own way and nobody can be of any help except by being kind, generous, and patient.
'Life', said Emerson, "consists in what a man is thinking all day." If that be so, then my life is nothing but a big intestine.
Understanding is not a piercing of the mystery, but an acceptance of it, a living blissfully with it, in it, through and by it.
The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.
I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live - if what others are doing is called living - but to express myself.
What is an artist? He's a man who has antennae, who knows how to hook up to the currents which are in atmosphere, in the cosmos.
Surely every one realizes, at some point along the way, that he is capable of living a far better life than the one he has chosen.
We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.
Every day that we fail to live out the maximum of our potentialities we kill the Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, Christ which is in us.
It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd.
The imperfections of a man, his frailties, his faults, are just as important as his virtues.You can't separate them. They're wedded.
The poet speaks adequately only when he speaks somewhat wildly... not with intellect alone, but with intellect inebriated by nectar.
The only difference between the Adamic man and the man of today is that the one was born to Paradise and the other has to create it.
We do not talk - we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.
When into the womb of time everything is again withdrawn chaos will be restored and chaos is the score upon which reality is written.
Everyone has his own reality in which, if one is not too cautious, timid or frightened, one swims. This is the only reality there is.
The real enemy can always be met and conquered, or won over. Real antagonism is based on love, a love which has not recognized itself.
The Teutons have been singing the swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always confounded truth with death.
I am living at the Villa Borghese. There is not a crumb of dirt anywhere, nor a chair misplaced. We are all alone here and we are dead.
Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.
It is almost banal to say so yet it needs to be stressed continually: all is creation, all is change, all is flux, all is metamorphosis.
The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses.
I had no more need of God than He had of me, and if there were one, I often said to myself, I would meet Him calmly and spit in His face.
The moment one is on the side of life; peace and security drop out of consciousness. The only peace, the only security, is in fulfillment.
The worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word, to see in his work a fulfillment instead of an horizon.
A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum.
The man who is intoxicated with life does not pass judgment, does not seek to come to a conclusion, does not impose his message on the world.
I have made a silent compact with myself not to change a line of what I write. I am not interested in perfecting my thoughts, nor my actions.
We must be holy without holiness. We must be whole, complete. That's being holy. Any other kind of holiness is false, a snare, and a delusion.
Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.
For the moment I can think of nothing— except that I am a sentient being stabbed by the miracle of these waters that reflect a forgotten world.
People used to envy me my inspiration. I hate inspiration. It takes you over completely. I could never wait until it passed and I got rid of it.
He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing (by writing) is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment.
One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life.
Analysis brings no curative powers in its train; it merely makes us conscious of the existence of an evil, which, oddly enough, is consciousness.
Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern.
Back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: it comes and goes. But if one believes, then miracles occur.
I haven't any allegiance, any responsibilities, any hatreds, any worries, any prejudices, any passion. I'm neither for nor against. I'm a neutral.
When you know what men are capable of you marvel neither at their sublimity nor their baseness. There are no limits in either direction apparently.
Of course you don't die. Nobody dies. Death doesn't exist. You only reach a new level of vision, a new realm of consciousness, a new unknown world.
To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were only capable of staying awake long enough to let the idea soak in.
The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
The Frenchman is first and foremost a man. He is likeable often just because of his weaknesses, which are always thoroughly human, even if despicable.