
“Every sensitive person carries in himself old cities enclosed by ancient walls”
Definitions, iii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy
“Every sensitive person carries in himself old cities enclosed by ancient walls”
Against Authority: Freedom and the Rise of Surveillance States (2014)
“The two most beautiful words in the English language are 'cheque enclosed.”
“Every word is an adamantine shell which encloses a great explosive force.”
"Massacre", Ch. 10, p. 88
Report to Greco (1965)
Context: Every word is an adamantine shell which encloses a great explosive force. To discover its meaning you must let it burst inside you like a bomb and in this way liberate the soul which it imprisons.
It All Began with Conservation Smithsonian magazine, April 1990, pages 35-43
“The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders.”
"Shadows from the Big Woods", p. 223
The Journey Home (1977)
Source: Anarcho-Syndicalism (1938), Ch. 1 "Anarchism: Its Aims and Purposes"
Context: Anarchism recognises only the relative significance of ideas, institutions, and social conditions. It is, therefore not a fixed, self enclosed social system, but rather a definite trend in the historical development of mankind, which, in contrast with the intellectual guardianship of all clerical and governmental institutions, strives for the free unhindered unfolding of all the individual and social forces in life. Even freedom is only a relative, not an absolute concept, since it tends constantly to broaden its scope and to affect wider circles in manifold ways. For the Anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all capacities and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account. The less this natural development of man is interfered with by ecclesiastical or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious will human personality become, the more will it become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown.
Thought and Word, iv
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books