“All the world was before me and every day was a holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of the world's wildernesses I first should wander.”

— John Muir

Source: The Yosemite

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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John Muir 183

Scottish-born American naturalist and author 1838–1914

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“He wanders, like a day-appearing dream,
Through the dim wildernesses of the mind; Through desert woods and tracts, which seem Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

“To live in the world without becoming aware of the meaning of the world is like wandering about in a great library without touching the books. It has always seemed to me that symbolism should be restored to the structure of world education.”

Manly P. Hall (1901–1990) Canadian writer and mystic

Quoted in the tribute of The Lost Symbol (2009) by Dan Brown
The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928)
Context: A nation with culture is blessed. To live in the world without becoming aware of the meaning of the world is like wandering about in a great library without touching the books. It has always seemed to me that symbolism should be restored to the structure of world education. The young are no longer invited to seek the hidden truths, dynamic and eternal, locked within the shapes and behavior of living beings.

“One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important, and that to take a holiday would bring all kinds of disaster. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Source: 1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

“Here is a doctrine at which you will laugh. It seems to me, Govinda, that Love is the most important thing in the world. It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.”

Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German writer

Siddhartha (1922)

“I have done no passably decent job in this world which did not at first seem to me useless - absurdly useless, useless to the point of nausea. My secret demon is called :What's the use?”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.17

“What so impressed me on that first reading was the self-containedness of Tolkien's world. I suppose there are a few novelists who have created worlds that are uniquely their own -- Faulkner, for example, or Dickens. But since their world is fairly close to the actual world, it cannot really be called a unique creation. The only parallel that occurs to me is the Wagner Ring cycle, that one can only enter as if taking a holiday on a strange planet.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Tree By Tolkien (1974), p. 8-9

“The highest of all holidays in the Satanic religion is the date of one's own birth. Every man is a god if he chooses to recognize himself as one. So, the Satanist celebrates his own birthday as the most important holiday of the year. Despite the fact that some of us may not have been wanted, or at least were not particularly planned, we're glad, even if no one else is, that we're here! You should give yourself a pat on the back, buy yourself whatever you want, treat yourself like the king (or god) that you are, and generally celebrate your birthday with as much pomp and ceremony as possible. After one's own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht and Halloween (or All Hallows' Eve). The solstices and equinoxes are also celebrated as holidays, as they herald the first day of the seasons.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

“For the first [his very first time in Paris], I went to a little hotel, where I spent the night in a sort of nightmare, in which I saw my home, full of melancholy, with my mother, grandmother, and sister spinning in the evening, weeping and thinking of me, praying that I should escape the perdition of Paris. Then the evil demon drove me on before wonderful pictures, which seemed so beautiful, so brilliant, that it appeared to me they took fire and vanished in a heavenly cloud... Finally, without knowing how, I found myself [during one of his his first days in Paris] on the Pont Neuf, from which I saw a magnificent building which I thought must be the Louvre, from the descriptions I had heard of it. I went to it, and mounted the great stairway with a beating heart. At last one great object of my life was attained. I had imagined correctly what I should see. It seemed to me that I was in a world of friends [the paintings of the old masters], in a family where all that I beheld was the reality of my dreams.”

Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) French painter

Source: Jean-Francois Millet – Peasant and Painter, 1881, p. 46-49

“It seemed unthinkable for me to leave the world forever before I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

“At moments of great enthusiasm it seems to me that no one in the world has ever made something this beautiful and important.”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

undated quotes, M.C. Escher Foundation

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