“Human society as a whole is a vast brainwashing machine whose semantic rules and sex roles create a social robot.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, quote from Prometheus Rising
“When we meet somebody whose separate tunnel-reality is obviously far different from ours, we are a bit frightened and always disoriented. We tend to think they are mad, or that they are crooks trying to con us in some way, or that they are hoaxers playing a joke. Yet it is neurologically obvious that no two brains have the same genetically-programmed hard wiring, the same imprints, the same conditioning, the same learning experiences. We are all living in separate realities. That is why communication fails so often, and misunderstandings and resentments are so common. I say "meow" and you say "Bow-wow," and each of us is convinced the other is a bit dumb.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, quote from Prometheus Rising
“The easiest way to get brainwashed is to be born. All of the above principles then immediately go into action, a process which social psychologists euphemistically call socialization.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, quote from Prometheus Rising
“All that we "know" is what registers on our brains, so what you perceive (your individual reality-tunnel) is made up of nothing but thoughts—as Sir Humphrey Davy noted when self-experimenting with nitrous oxide in 1819, and as Buddha noticed by sitting alone until all his social imprints atrophied and dropped away.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, quote from Prometheus Rising
“In summary, Intelligence Intensification is desirable, because there is not a single problem confronting humanity that is not either caused or considerably worsened by the prevailing stupidity (insensitivity) of the species: badly wired robots bumping into and maiming and killing each other.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, quote from Prometheus Rising
“Nothing in this book is an attempt to prevent the really resolute misery addicts from continuing their pursuit of frustration and failure.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, quote from Prometheus Rising
“There is a Zen story (very funny — ha-ha) about a monk who, having failed to achieve “enlightenment” (brain-change) through the normal Zen methods, was told by his teacher to think of nothing but an ox. Day after day after day, the monk thought of the ox, visualized the ox, meditated on the ox. Finally, one day, the teacher came to the monk’s cell and said, “Come out here — I want to talk to you.” “I can’t get out,” the monk said. “My horns won’t fit through the door.” I can’t get out . . . At these words, the monk was “enlightened.” Never mind what “enlightenment” means, right now. The monk went through some species of brain change, obviously. He had developed the delusion that he was an ox, and awakening from that hypnoidal state he saw through the mechanism of all other delusions and how they robotize us. EXERCIZES”
― Robert Anton Wilson, quote from Prometheus Rising
“As Dr. Leonard Orr has noted, the human mind behaves as if it were divided into two parts, the Thinker and the Prover.
The Thinker can think about virtually anything.
(...) The Prover is a much simpler mechanism. It operates on one law only: Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves. To cite a notorious example which unleashed incredible horrors earlier in this century, if the Thinker thinks that all Jews are rich, the Prover will prove it. It will find evidence that the poorest Jew in the most run-down ghetto has hidden money somewhere. Similarly, Feminists are able to believe that all men, including the starving wretches who live and sleep on the streets, are exploiting all women, including the Queen of England.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, quote from Prometheus Rising
“If I am so fortunate as to be listening to the Hammerklavier sonata, the only correct answer, if you ask me suddenly, "Who are you?" would be to hum the Hammerklavier.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, quote from Prometheus Rising
Robert Anton Wilson
Born place: in Brooklyn, New York, The United States
Born date January 18, 1932
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“Каждая новая выходка не прибавляет мне сил, а, напротив, отнимает последние, а я все не унимаюсь”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Dying Animal
“Hey,” Finn said, glancing over his shoulder. He had the end of a paintbrush clenched between his teeth. “You’re just in time.”
“For what?” she asked as she slipped inside.
“My nervous breakdown,” Finn said with a wry smile, dropping his paintbrush onto the easel’s shelf. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and sat down on an old garden bench that was pushed up against the wall. “I suck. Did you know that you are in the presence of a person who completely and utterly sucks?”
― quote from Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys
“Everything bad was worse at the holidays, he knew that from the years of his dad’s absence. All around you were people in an extra-happy mood, and it just made your own hurt bigger.”
― Suzanne Collins, quote from Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane
“I was the only one without. you could hit bottom and then find another bottom. balls.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness
“I
On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping
White Ophelia floats like a great lily;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils...
- In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.
For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia
Has passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.
For more than a thousand years her sweet madness
Has murmured its ballad to the evening breeze.
The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath
Her great veils rising and falling with the waters;
The shivering willows weep on her shoulder,
The rushes lean over her wide, dreaming brow.
The ruffled water-lilies are sighing around her;
At times she rouses, in a slumbering alder,
Some nest from which escapes a small rustle of wings;
- A mysterious anthem falls from the golden stars.
II
O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow!
Yes child, you died, carried off by a river!
- It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway
That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom.
It was a breath of wind, that, twisting your great hair,
Brought strange rumors to your dreaming mind;
It was your heart listening to the song of Nature
In the groans of the tree and the sighs of the nights;
It was the voice of mad seas, the great roar,
That shattered your child's heart, too human and too soft;
It was a handsome pale knight, a poor madman
Who one April morning sate mute at your knees!
Heaven! Love! Freedom! What a dream, oh poor crazed Girl!
You melted to him as snow does to a fire;
Your great visions strangled your words
- And fearful Infinity terrified your blue eye!
III
- And the poet says that by starlight
You come seeking, in the night, the flowers that you picked
And that he has seen on the water, lying in her long veils
White Ophelia floating, like a great lily.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from A Season in Hell/The Drunken Boat
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Assassin's Apprentic...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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