
“He listens well who takes notes.”
Canto XV, line 99 (tr. Clive James).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno
“He listens well who takes notes.”
Canto XV, line 99 (tr. Clive James).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno
“A true Zen saying: "Nothing is what I want.”
Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6; Quoted in: Lawrence Winkler. Samurai Road. 2016. p. 25
Alan Watts, on Zen (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh-3FJs2pz8
Context: I want to make one thing absolutely clear. I am not a Zen Buddhist, I am not advocating Zen Buddhism, I am not trying to convert anyone to it. I have nothing to sell. I'm an entertainer. That is to say, in the same sense, that when you go to a concert and you listen to someone play Mozart, he has nothing to sell except the sound of the music. He doesn’t want to convert you to anything. He doesn’t want you to join an organization in favor of Mozart's music as opposed to, say, Beethoven's. And I approach you in the same spirit as a musician with his piano or a violinist with his violin. I just want you to enjoy a point of view that I enjoy.
Zen: Dawn in the West (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1980), p. 83.
“But good Angel, don't I get a warning sign
Before it's my time to go?”
The Angel of Death Came to David's Room.
It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All A Dream! It's Alright (2009)
“The entire universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs.”
Quoted in Essays in Zoosemiotics (1990) by Thomas A. Sebeok