the pursuit of understanding

Writing is the only way that I know how to cope with being alive.

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

The longer I live, the more uninformed I feel. Only the young have an explanation for everything.

Isabel Allende

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

A man needs a little madness, or else… he never dares cut the rope and be free.

Nikos Kazantzakis

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

Under peaceful conditions, the warlike man attacks himself.

Nietzsche

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly... Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them...throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you...trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly...on tiptoes and no luggage...completely unencumbered.

Aldous Huxley

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.

Sylvia Plath

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

Everybody's wearing a disguise, to hide what they've got left behind their eyes.

Bob Dylan

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

If you're a true believer; if you have some pre-packaged philosophy then you're going to miss a great deal because you're pre-programmed to ignore what doesn't fit into your model. And it doesn't matter what your model is.

Terrence McKenna

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

He who lives without discipline dies without honor.

Icelandic Proverb

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.

Khalil Gibran

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious. But the stupid have an answer for every question.

Edward Abbey

[feral-ballad]

Marie Howe, from What the Living Do; “Watching Television”

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.

C.G. Jung

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.

St. Augustine

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

Does not everything depend upon our interpretation of the silence around us?

Lawrence Durrell

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

If you're thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you're embarking on something, which will take the whole of you.

C. S. Lewis