“paranoia is just a heightened sense of awareness”
“Total paranoia is just total awareness.”
Rolling Stone interview (June 1970)
Context: Have you ever seen the coyote in the desert? Watching, tuned in, completely aware. Christ on the cross, the coyote in the desert — it’s the same thing, man. The coyote is beautiful. He moves through the desert delicately, aware of everything, looking around. He hears every sound, smells every smell, sees everything that moves. He’s in a state of total paranoia, and total paranoia is total awareness.
The Temper of Our Time (1967)
Context: Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.
Ibid., p. 150
The Book of Disquiet
Original: O homem perfeito do pagão era a perfeição do homem que há; o homem perfeito do cristão a perfeição do homem que não há; o homem perfeito do budista a perfeição de não haver homem.
“Everything that looks too perfect is too perfect to be perfect.”
Mastery http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mastery-2/
From the poems written in English
The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance (1965)
“Practice makes perfect' is bullshit. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”
The Coach, P. 23. (1977)
“Perfect health, like perfect beauty, is a rare thing; and so, it seems, is perfect disease.”
Infertility Counseling: A Comprehensive Handbook for Clinicians - Page 179 by Linda Hammer Burns, Sharon N. Covington - Medical - 2000.
Collected Works
Source: 1930s- 1950s, The Future of Industrial Man (1942), p. 122
