To be a fool at the right time is also an art.
In real life there is no such thing as the average man.
I have spoken so far only of the blissful visionary experience? But visionary experience is not always blissful. It’s sometimes terrible. There is hell as well as heaven.
One seventh of your life is spent on Monday.
The thing that impresses me most about this country is its hopefulness. It is this which distinguishes it from Europe, where there is hopeless depression and fear.
Words play an enormous part in our lives and are therefore deserving of the closest study.
Look with complete innocence at the infinitely improbable thing before you.
Blood of the world, time staunchless flows; The wound is mortal and is mine.
The fact that people are shocked is the best proof that they need shocking.
The horror no less than the charm of real life consists precisely in the recurrent actualization of the inconceivable.
Today we are faced, I think, with the approach of what may be called the ultimate revolution, the final revolution, where man can act directly on the mind-body of his fellows.
People often ask me what is the most effective technique for transforming their life. It is a little embarrassing that after years and years of research and experimentation, I have to say that the best answer is – just be a little kinder.
We lie to ourselves in order that we may still have the excuse of ignorance, the alibi of stupidity and incomprehension, possessing which we can continue with a good conscience to commit and tolerate the most monstrous crimes.
People travel for the same reason as they collect works of art: because the best people do it.
Knowledge is an affair of symbols and is, all too often, a hindrance to wisdom, the uncovering of the self from moment to moment.
When the sun rises, it rises for everyone.
But the quiet grows and grows. Beautifully and unbearably.
Art, I suppose, is only for beginners, who have made up in their minds to be content with symbols rather than with what they signify, with the elegantly composed recipe in lieu of actual dinner.
I think we have to prepare the mind in one way or another to accept the great uprush or downrush, whichever you like to call it, of the greater non-self.
We tend to think and feel in terms of the art we like; and if the art we like is bad then our thinking and feeling will be bad. And if the thinking and feeling of most of the individuals composing a society is bad, is not that society in danger?