Celia Green citations

“Now if you do have a perception that any conceivable consideration may be utterly invalidated by some other consideration which you do not know, and if you are reminded of this perception constantly by the fact that things exist, certain modifications take place in the way you feel about things. These modifications have not taken place in the psychology of most people.”

“On the face of it there is something rather strange about human psychology. Human beings live in a state of mind called sanity, on a small planet in space. They are not quite sure whether the space around them is infinite or not, either way it is unthinkable. If they think about time, they find that it is inconceivable that it had a beginning. It is also inconceivable that it did not have a beginning. Thoughts of this kind are not disturbing to sanity, which is obviously a remarkable phenomenon that deserves more recognition.”

“The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest astonishment.”

“The psychology of committees is a special case of the psychology of mobs.”

“People have been marrying and bringing up children for centuries now. Nothing has ever come of it.”

“The human race believes in not taking its problems seriously enough to solve them.”

“The remarkable thing about the human mind is its range of limitations.”

“Now if you see that it is inconceivable that anything should exist, it is evident that at least one inconceivable fact is there. That is to say, that which exists is not limited to the conceivable. Since the inconceivable is there, it is impossible to set any limit to the quantity of inconceivableness which may be present in the situation. Now were the existence of anything consistently to remind you of the fact of inconceivability, since it is impossible to live without interacting with a large number of existing things, it would be impossible for you to feel in the same way about the conceivable.”

“Human nature: vindictiveness lightly coated with dishonesty.”

“The most exciting thing possible is actually true.”

“Society is everybody's way of punishing one another because they daren't take it out on the universe.”

“It is inconceivable that anything should be existing. It is not inconceivable that a lot of people should also be existing who are not interested in the fact that they exist. But it is certainly very odd.”

“I have long had a theory that the popularity of Christianity has always depended on its appeal to the sadism of its adherents. The exceptional should be crucified, saith Society; and somehow everyone suspects (in spite of all arguments to the contrary) that if there is a God, he may be exceptional in some way. So the figure of Christ crucified becomes the figure of the dangerous exceptional alien—suitably defeated. 'Only a suffering God can help', said Bonhoeffer, licking his lips.”

“The starting point is that one is interested in the universe, one observes that one is finite and that this is intolerable. One has a limited time and apparently limited capacity with which to find anything out. Therefore it is possible to despair. There are many orders of despair, and none of them are known to normal psychology. This is demonstrated by the fact that it has not become existential. Normal psychology will never devalue anything. Existential psychology, at least to a certain point, consists of exploiting the recoil from the despair of finiteness. The recoil is a drive with at least the instinctive immediacy of the survival instinct. There is no point in saying, 'What is there to do? What could such a drive possibly tend towards?”

“Lack of clarity is always a sign of dishonesty.”

“It is easier to make people appear equally stupid than to make them equally clever, so teaching methods are adopted which make it practically impossible for anyone to learn anything.”

“The fact that something is far-fetched is no reason why it should not be true; it cannot be as far-fetched as the fact that something exists.”

“When people talk about 'the sanctity of the individual' they mean 'the sanctity of the statistical norm.”

“One of the greatest superstitions of our time is the belief that it has none.”

“It is superfluous to be humble on one's own behalf; so many people are willing to do it for one.”

“What is scandalous is not that stupid people should sometimes inherit private incomes; but that clever people should sometimes not.”

“It is when the commercial factor enters into the situation that the possibility of genuine individual liberty arises.”

“In the universe there is room for an infinite series of beginnings.”

“In an unenlightened society some people are forced to play degrading social roles; in an enlightened society, everyone is.”

“The human race knows enough about thinking to prevent it.”

“When someone says his conclusions are objective, he means that they are based on prejudices which many other people share.”

“Children need admiration rather than affection.”

“Astonishment is the only realistic emotion.”

“Only the impossible is worth attempting. In everything else one is sure to fail.”