
“I never do anything I don't want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it.”
Source: Stranger in a Strange Land
Letter to her husband George P. Putnam, on the eve of her last flight
Last Flight (1937)
“I never do anything I don't want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it.”
Source: Stranger in a Strange Land
Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)
Source: 1990s and later, Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond (1992), p. 139
Introduction to The Path (1999), based on ideas presented in Thinking and Destiny (1946) by Harold W. Percival, p. 12
Context: Our world is in profound danger. Mankind must establish a set of positive values with which to secure its own survival.
This quest for enlightenment must begin now.
It is essential that all men and women become aware of what they are, why they are here on Earth and what they must do to preserve civilization before it is too late.
“I am well aware that a painting must inevitably be a bizarre, incomprehensible thing.”
1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)
5th Public Talk Saanen (26th July 1970); also in "Fear and Pleasure", The Collected Works, Vol. X
1970s
Context: Do you decide to observe? Or do you merely observe? Do you decide and say, "I am going to observe and learn"? For then there is the question: "Who is deciding?" Is it will that says, "I must"? And when it fails, it chastises itself further and says, "I must, must, must"; in that there is conflict; therefore the state of mind that has decided to observe is not observation at all. You are walking down the road, somebody passes you by, you observe and you may say to yourself, "How ugly he is; how he smells; I wish he would not do this or that". You are aware of your responses to that passer-by, you are aware that you are judging, condemning or justifying; you are observing. You do not say, "I must not judge, I must not justify". In being aware of your responses, there is no decision at all. You see somebody who insulted you yesterday. Immediately all your hackles are up, you become nervous or anxious, you begin to dislike; be aware of your dislike, be aware of all that, do not "decide" to be aware. Observe, and in that observation there is neither the "observer" nor the "observed" — there is only observation taking place. The "observer" exists only when you accumulate in the observation; when you say, "He is my friend because he has flattered me", or, "He is not my friend, because he has said something ugly about me, or something true which I do not like." That is accumulation through observation and that accumulation is the observer. When you observe without accumulation, then there is no judgement.
Quoted in "Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression" - by International Military Tribunal - 1946