Before You Read
Abandon all hope; then enter. —Dante Alighieri
Exuberance is beauty.
—William Blake
Plain speech is essentially inaccurate. It is only by new metaphors that it can be made precise.
—T.E. Hulme
What is the good of passing from one untenable position to another, of seeking justification always on the same plane?
—Samuel Beckett
Not suitable as a party member:Whoever thinks much is not suitable as a party member: he soon thinks himself right out of the party.
—Friederich Nietzsche
Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
A text is not a text unless it hides from the first comer, from the first glance, the law of its composition and the rules of its game.
—Jacques Derrida, Plato’s Pharmacy
Ask yourself, “what is the truth,” and your Buddhism will be a series of platitudes. Ask yourself, “what are the lies,” and …? —GW
All true language is incomprehensible, like the chatter of a beggar’s teeth. —Antonin Artaud
Exposure, not protection. Evocation, not indication. —GW
[Contra:] The most dangerous party member.—In every party there is one who, through his all-too credulous avowal of the party’s principles, incites the others to apostasy. —Friedrich Nietzsche
[Pro:] The most dangerous follower. —The most dangerous follower is he whose defection would destroy the whole party: that is to say, the best follower. —Friedrich Nietzsche
A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window. ―Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
I don’t know any form that doesn’t shit on being in the most unbearable manner. ―Samuel Beckett
The universe is designed to erase your name. Thus:
In Euripides’s time, the Greeks never wrote obituaries. They posed only one question: did the dead have a passion? —Camelia Elias
Our actions dwell in darkness—if they lack song. And I know of only one way to hold a mirror up to those deeds: if, through the presence of memory, we find a recompense for our lives in glorious song. —Pindar, paraphrase
Now one hanged man kicks at the end of his rope
in another little attack of hope. —Paul Muldoon
It is too late for arguments. —GW
Tom Pepper said
How about this:
A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.
― Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
Matthias Steingass said
Thinking about a quote I remembered Dante‘s „Abandon all hope, ye who enter her“ – the famous greeting written above the entrance to hell. In italian it reads „Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’ entrate!“. Some have argued that Dante mixed up his notes during his journey and in reality the warning is written above the entrance to paradise. It is not always the best to find what one is looking for when searching for happiness. Slightly variated the quote then reads, „Lasciate ogni speranza, e poi entrate“ – „Abandon al hope, and then enter.“ Either way this might not be the worst reminder for this undertaking. (The variation stems from Paul Watzlawick)
Richard Blumberg said
“Ah! weak & wide astray! Ah shut in narrow doleful form!
Creeping in reptile flesh upon the bosom of the ground:
The Eye of Man, a little narrow orb, closd up & dark.
Scarcely beholding the Great Light; conversing with the ground:
The Ear, a little shell, in small volutions shutting out
True Harmonies, & comprehending great, as very small:
The Nostrils, bent down to the earth & clos’d with senseless flesh.
That odours cannot them expand, nor joy on them exult:
The Tongue, a little moisture fills, a little food it cloys,
A little sound it utters, & its cries are faintly heard.”
William Blake
Garett, Stillwater, Oklahoma said
Ka-doosh! Thats my new Non-omotopia. The sound of a brick to the forehead.
Like a clipper ship approaching from the horizon to an indigenous prehistoric island native (redundant?), this tome is invisible/inaudible/un-understable to those in whom the seeds of recognition do not exist. (This mitigates the concern I infer from “Before you Read”, even though it was a bit flamboyant.)
For me, not quite a Kadoosh, but a “Now we’re talkin – lets go!” I knew tantric dizziness wasn’t real, so I left to a more appropriate distance. (Beneficial though being there was.) I Knew negating and abandoning…everything…was no way to live, so I maintained a distance to begin with. Koans are so lame I never even sat down.
So/but/and, if you haven’t read yet (because you are here before you read), well, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have an open mind. Be advised – this blog, AND A DICTIONARY, JEEZ!, may pry it open further. You may be caused to question what you thought was your path, a serious thing indeed.
“If you think you can handle it.” That’s what she said to me. I must admit I was trepidatious when I clicked Buy Now.
But was there really any choice?
Javi said
I think a quote by Siddhartha could do well in there to show his skeptic side
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
There’s is of course, so many Nietzsche quotes that fit but i prefer the shortest ones
“How I understand the philosopher – as a terrible explosive, endangering everything!”
Hundovir said
“No man believes…
Who does not make a wound in faith
When any light goes out, and life is death…
No man believes who cries not, God is not,
Who feels not coldness in the heat…
Believe and be saved. No man believes
Who curses not what makes and saves,
No man upon this cyst of earth
Believes who does not lance his faith…”
~~Dylan Thomas
Hans C. said
„Detachment is the nature of traumatized man.“
– U. G. Krishnamurti
I like the Dylan Thomas poem very much.
Robert said
Hitherto philosophers have had the solution of all riddles lying in their writing-desks, and the stupid, exoteric world had only to open its mouth for the roast pigeons of absolute knowledge to fly into it. Now philosophy has become mundane, and the most striking proof of this is that philosophical consciousness itself has been drawn into the torment of the struggle, not only externally but also internally. But, if constructing the future and settling everything for all times are not our affair, it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.
Karl Marx, Letters from the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, 1843
Matthias said
Thinking is “Hot Stuff”!