
“I have two rules in life - to hell with it, whatever it is, and get your work done.”
Attributed to Andy Grove in: Ciarán Parker (2006) The Thinkers 50: The World's Most Influential Business. p. 70
New millennium
“I have two rules in life - to hell with it, whatever it is, and get your work done.”
From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)
"On Certain Inconsistencies in Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)
"Francis Biddle's Sister: Pornography, Civil Rights, and Speech" (1984), p. 170
Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law (1987)
On financial planning at a speech at the Smithsonian.
"New Maps of Hyperspace" (1989); originally published in Magical Blend magazine, also in The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History (1992) http://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/mckenna_terence/mckenna_terence_maps_hyperspace.shtml
Context: There is a spiritual obligation, there is a task to be done. It is not, however, something as simple as following a set of somebody else's rules. The noetic enterprise is a primary obligation toward being. Our salvation is linked to it. Not everyone has to read alchemical texts or study superconducting biomolecules to make the transition. Most people make it naively by thinking clearly about the present at hand, but we intellectuals are trapped in a world of too much information. Innocence is gone for us. We cannot expect to cross the rainbow bridge through a good act of contrition; that will not be sufficient.
We have to understand. Whitehead said, "Understanding is the apperception of pattern as such"; to fear death is to misunderstand life. Cognitive activity is the defining act of humanness. Language, thought, analysis, art, dance, poetry, mythmaking: these are the things that point the way toward the realm of the eschaton. We humans may be released into a realm of pure self-engineering. The imagination is everything. This was Blake's perception. This is where we came from. This is where we are going. And it is only to be approached through cognitive activity.
“In case you were wondering, it is preferable to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven—I’ve done both.”
Source: City of Heavenly Fire