Source: The Conquest of Fear (1921), Chapter III : God And His Self-Expression, § VIII
Context: I was to see myself as God's Self-Expression working with others who were also His Self-Expression to the same extent as I. It was in the fact of our uniting together to produce His Self-Expression that I was to look for my security. No one could effectively work against me while I was consciously trying to work with God. Moreover, it was probable that no one was working against me, or had any intention of working against me, but that my own point of view being wrong I had put the harmonious action of my life out of order. Suspicion always being likely to see what it suspects the chances were many that I was creating the very thing I suffered from.
This does not mean that in our effort to reproduce harmonious action we should shut our eyes to what is evidently wrong, or blandly ignore what is plainly being done to our disadvantage. Of course not! One uses all the common-sense methods of getting justice for oneself and protecting one's own interests. But it does mean that when I can no longer protect my own interests, when my affairs depend upon others far more than on myself — a condition in which we all occasionally find ourselves — I am not to fret myself, not to churn my spirit into nameless fears. I am not a free agent. Those with whom I am associated are not free agents. God is the one supreme command. He expresses Himself through me; He expresses Himself through them; we all.
“Self-expression is impossible in relation with other men; their self-expression interferes with it. The greatest heights of self-expression in poetry, music, painting – are achieved by men who are supremely alone.”
Source: The Outsider (1956), Chapter Eight, The Outsider as a Visionary
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Colin Wilson 192
author 1931–2013Related quotes
“Men make war to get attention. All killing is an expression of self-hate.”
"The Profession of Poetry," Partisan Review (September/October 1950) [p. 168]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)
“…the Outsider's problem is the problem of denial of self-expression.”
Source: The Outsider (1956), Chapter Four The Attempt to Gain Control
Source: Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time (1975), p. v
Quote in a questionnaire, Max Ernst filled out in 1948, the U.S; as cited in Max Ernst: a Retrospective, ed. Werner Spies & Sabine Rewald, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2005, p. 7
1936 - 1950
“Self-determination is an expression of the individual and collective right to democracy.”
Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order on the right of self determination http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx.
2015, Report submitted to the UN General Assembly