Quotes about surround

page 8

Source: James Fitzsimmons, ‎Jim Fitzsimmons (1967). Art International. Vol. 11. p. 24

Source: 2010s, Marked for Death (2012), Ch. 1: "The Axe Versus the Pen", pp. 4–5

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Ik heb hier zoveel drukken gecomponeerd uit de onmiddellijke omgeving om mij heen, beginnende met de schoorstenen en de duiven en de voorbijvarende schepen, het trappenhuis, het doolhof van gangen en deuren, de gekke combinaties van balken en beschotten..
In a letter to August Henkels, 29 April 1941; as cited in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 105
1940's

Life & Times of Michael K (1983)

Other quotes

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p. 234

1920
as quoted in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, pp. 440-441
1908 - 1920, On Mystery and Creation, Paris 1913

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 103

"G.O.D. (Gaining One's Definition)" (Track 7)
Albums, One Day It'll All Make Sense (1997)

Page 38.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

TV recordings of stage shows, Mind Reader – An Evening of Wonders (2009), Mind Reader – An Evening of Wonders tour brochure

“Der Mensch ist ein abschätzendes Tier.”
Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), pp. 38-39.

Source: The Unfinished Autobiography (1951), Chapter I, Part 1

Book One in 'Unwelcome Visitors', MG
The Master and Margarita (1967)

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

From Her Tours and CDs, I'm The One That I Want Tour

As quoted in: John F. Moffitt (2003) Alchemist of the Avant-Garde: The Case of Marcel Duchamp, p. 87.
1910, Manifesto of Futurist Painters,' April 1910

from: Die Kunst Ferdinand Hodlers, 1923

Source: Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1961 - 1970, Diary of a Genius (1964), p. 189 - Prologue

Twenty-Four Years After (1869)

Source: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (2009), pp. 146-147

Source: Culture series, Excession (1996), Chapter 4 “Dependency Principle” section III (p. 120).

"Bisexuality and the Causes of Homosexuality: The Case of the Sambia"

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

How To Defend Society Against Science (1975)

Quote in Daubigny's letter to his friend Frédéric Henriet, 1872; as cited in 'Charles-francois Daubigny', by Robert J. Wichenden, in The Century Illustrated Montly Magazine, Vol. XLIV, July 1892, p. 337
1860s - 1870s

1945 - 1970, A Report on the Wall' 1970

Source: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), Ch. 21, June 28, 1941.

Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling. "Rights and production functions: An application to labor-managed firms and codetermination." Journal of business (1979): 469-506.

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 104

The Poet and the World (1996)

"Death" in an untitled dialogue (1809); published in Life of Shelley (1858) by Thomas Jefferson Hogg, p. 197

As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 172.
1910, Manifesto of Futurist Painters,' April 1910

quote from a talk with Alfred Sensier, c. 1865; as cited in Barbizon days, Millet-Corot-Rousseau-Barye by Charles Sprague Smith, A. Wessels Company, New York, July 1902, pp. 159-60
the quote is pointing to his painting 'The Farm / La Ferme', upon which Rousseau had worked for years
1851 - 1867

Journal of Discourses 15:181 (September 22, 1872).
Joseph Smith Jr.'s First Vision

I, 3
Variant translation: The things which … are esteemed as the greatest good of all … can be reduced to these three headings, to wit : Riches, Fame, and Pleasure. With these three the mind is so engrossed that it cannot scarcely think of any other good.
On the Improvement of the Understanding (1662)

Intergalactic Fame (29 July 2011).
Captain Jul's Mission Blog (2011 - 2013)

Mühl angrily ridiculed my relapse into a “technique” that had to be overcome.
Source: Nervous Stillness on the Horizon (2006), P. 120 (1985)

Der Judenstaat [The Jewish State] (1896)

"Goodbye, and Good Riddance, to Centrism" Rolling Stone, June 13, 2017 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-goodbye-and-good-riddance-to-centrism-w487628

As quoted in Joseph Telushkin's Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History

Talcott Parsons (1968) "Systems Analysis: Social Systems" in: David L. Sills ed. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. p. 458; Cited in: Ida R. Hoos (1972) Systems Analysis in Public Policy: A Critique.

Elliot and Dowson, Vol. III : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 43 Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes from The History of India as told by its own Historians

Philip Larkin http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3827144.ece
About

Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)

Source: Memoirs Of A Bird In A Gilded Cage (1969), CHAPTER 8, Centennial summer, p. 196

Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2014)

Cultural Confinement, 1972

Indian Political Thought, p. 191

Quote from Hodler's speech: 'Über die Kunst', in Freibourg, 1897; as cited in Nationalism and the Nordic Imagination: Swedish Art of the 1890's, Michelle Facos; University of California Press, 1998, p.

as quoted in 'Tàpies: From Within', June/November 2013 - Presse Release text, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC), p. 9
1971 - 1980, Memòria Personal', 1977

Brute sub occasu solis trans Gallica regna
Insula in occeano est habitata gigantibus olim.
Nunc deserta quidem gentibus apta tuis.
Illa tibi fietque tuis locus aptus in aevum;
Hec erit et natis altera Troia tuis,
Hic de prole tua reges nascentur et ipsis
Totius terrae subditus orbis erit.
Bk. 1, ch. 11; p. 101.
Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain)

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The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Tulsi Books, 2010)

Source: "Training for Leadership in a Democracy", 1936, p. 65-70, as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 663

Maurice in “Characters,” p. 298
Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality (1964)
Context: In my present insistence on high standards you will see that there is less self-indulgence than resolve and application. I do not let the Christian monopolize the ideal of perfection. I have my own virtue, which I am constantly cultivating and refining by teaching myself not to tolerate in me or my surroundings anything but the exquisite.

Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
Context: The visible world has, as I have said, subsisted around him from all eternity: and the Light also which surrounds the world has also its place from all eternity, not intermittently, nor in different degrees at different times, but constantly and in an equable manner. But whosoever will attempt to estimate, as far as thought goes, this external Nature, by the measure of Time, he will very easily discover respecting the Sun, Sovereign of all things, of how many blessings he is, from all eternity, the author to the world.

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 296
Context: It was not a model style for the President of the United States to enter the capital of a conquered country, yet there was a moral in it all which had more effect than if he had come surrounded with great armies and heralded by the booming of cannon. He came, armed with the majesty of the law, to put his seal to the act which had been established by the bayonets of the Union soldiers the establishment of peace and goodwill between the North and the South, and liberty to all mankind who dwell upon our shores.

Source: In My Own Way: An Autobiography 1915-1965 (1972), p. 224

The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child (1877)
Context: In the old times of which I have spoken, they desired to make all men think exactly alike. All the mechanical ingenuity of the world cannot make two clocks run exactly alike, and how are you going to make hundreds of millions of people, differing in brain and disposition, in education and aspiration, in conditions and surroundings, each clad in a living robe of passionate flesh — how are you going to make them think and feel alike? If there is an infinite god, one who made us, and wishes us to think alike, why did he give a spoonful of brains to one, and a magnificent intellectual development to another? Why is it that we have all degrees of intelligence, from orthodoxy to genius, if it was intended that all should think and feel alike?

Essay as "Mr. X" (1969)
Context: I do not consider myself a religious person in the usual sense, but there is a religious aspect to some highs. The heightened sensitivity in all areas gives me a feeling of communion with my surroundings, both animate and inanimate. Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the absurd comes over me and I see with awful certainty the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow men. And at other times, there is a different sense of the absurd, a playful and whimsical awareness. Both of these senses of the absurd can be communicated, and some of the most rewarding highs I've had have been in sharing talk and perceptions and humor. Cannabis brings us an awareness that we spend a lifetime being trained to overlook and forget and put out of our minds. A sense of what the world is really like can be maddening; cannabis has brought me some feelings for what it is like to be crazy, and how we use that word "crazy" to avoid thinking about things that are too painful for us. In the Soviet Union political dissidents are routinely placed in insane asylums. The same kind of thing, a little more subtle perhaps, occurs here: "did you hear what Lenny Bruce said yesterday? He must be crazy."

Part III, Chapter VI
Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)
Context: Once the masterpiece has emerged, the lesser works surrounding it fall into place; and it then gives the impression of having been led up to and foreseeable, though actually it is inconceivable — or, rather, it can only be conceived of once it is there for us to see it. It is not a scene that has come alive, but a latent potentiality that has materialized. Suppose that one of the world's masterpieces were to disappear, leaving no trace behind it, not even a reproduction; even the completest knowledge of its maker's other works would not enable the next generation to visualize it. All the rest of Leonardo's oeuvre would not enable us to visualize the Mona Lisa; all Rembrandt's, the Three Crosses or The Prodigal Son; all Vermeer's, The Love Letter; all Titian's, the Venice Pietà; all medieval sculpture, the Chartres Kings or the Naumburg Uta. What would another picture by the Master of Villeneuve look like? How could even the most careful study of The Embarkation for Cythera, or indeed that of all Watteau's other works conjure up L'Enseigne de Gersaint, had it disappeared?

Locus interview (1998)
Context: To my mind, the expression of divinity is in variety, and the more variable the creation, the more variable the creatures that surround us, botanical and zoological, the more chance we have to learn and to see into life itself, nature itself. If we were just human beings, living in a spaceship, with an algae farm to give us food, we would not be moved to learn nearly as many things as we are moved by living on a world, surrounded by all kinds of variety. And when I see that variety being first decimated, and then halved — and I imagine in another hundred years it may be down by 90% and there'll be only 10% of what we had when I was a child — that makes me very sad, and very despairing, because we need variety. We came from that, we were born from that, it's our world, the world in which we became what we have become.

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 53-54

The Great Infidels (1881)
Context: Great virtues may draw attention from defects, they cannot sanctify them. A pebble surrounded by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is still a gem. No one should attempt to refute an argument by pronouncing the name of some man, unless he is willing to adopt all the ideas and beliefs of that man. It is better to give reasons and facts than names. An argument should not depend for its force upon the name of its author. Facts need no pedigree, logic has no heraldry, and the living should not awed by the mistakes of the dead.

Source: The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998), p. 30
Context: The religious naturalist is provisioned with tales of natural emergence that are, to my mind, far more magical than traditional miracles. Emergence is inherent in everything that is alive, allowing our yearning for supernatural miracles to be subsumed by our joy in the countless miracles that surround us.

"A Woman's Sex" in Wild Ways : Zen Poems (2003), edited and translated by John Stevens, p. 74.

Lecture in Los Altos, CA (1 September 1967)
Context: So I say, ‘Oh, I am sorry but soon you will see the bright sunrise every morning and beautiful sunset in the evening, every evening, but right now perhaps you…under your situation it may be impossible to see the beautiful sunset or bright sunrise, or beautiful flower in your garden, and it is impossible to take care of your garden, but soon you will see the beauty of the flowers and you will cut some flowers for your room.’ When you start to do this kind of thing you are alright. Don’t worry a bit. It means when you become you, yourself, and when you see things as they are, and when you become at one with your surrounding, in its true sense, there is true self.

Source: The Black Room (1975), p. 20
Context: All men are stuck in a kind of fog. They're surrounded by a wall of fog. They think this is perfectly normal, but it's not. It means that since they can't see much beyond their own little situation, they tend to vegetate. They need some immediate stimulus to keep them alert.

Letter to his son http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/01/03/robert-e-Lee-owned-slaves-and-defended-slavery/, G. W. Custis Lee (23 January 1861).
1860s
Context: I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It is intended for 'perpetual Union,' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession: anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and all the other patriots of the Revolution. … Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me. I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress of mankind. If the Union is dissolved and the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people, and, save in defense will draw my sword on none.

1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)
Context: Fellow citizens, ours is no new-born zeal and devotion — merely a thing of this moment. The name of Abraham Lincoln was near and dear to our hearts in the darkest and most perilous hours of the republic. We were no more ashamed of him when shrouded in clouds of darkness, of doubt, and defeat than when we saw him crowned with victory, honor, and glory. Our faith in him was often taxed and strained to the uttermost, but it never failed. When he tarried long in the mountain; when he strangely told us that we were the cause of the war; when he still more strangely told us that we were to leave the land in which we were born; when he refused to employ our arms in defense of the Union; when, after accepting our services as colored soldiers, he refused to retaliate our murder and torture as colored prisoners; when he told us he would save the Union if he could with slavery; when he revoked the Proclamation of Emancipation of General Fremont; when he refused to remove the popular commander of the Army of the Potomac, in the days of its inaction and defeat, who was more zealous in his efforts to protect slavery than to suppress rebellion; when we saw all this, and more, we were at times grieved, stunned, and greatly bewildered; but our hearts believed while they ached and bled. Nor was this, even at that time, a blind and unreasoning superstition. Despite the mist and haze that surrounded him; despite the tumult, the hurry, and confusion of the hour, we were able to take a comprehensive view of Abraham Lincoln, and to make reasonable allowance for the circumstances of his position. We saw him, measured him, and estimated him; not by stray utterances to injudicious and tedious delegations, who often tried his patience; not by isolated facts torn from their connection; not by any partial and imperfect glimpses, caught at inopportune moments; but by a broad survey, in the light of the stern logic of great events, and in view of that divinity which shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will, we came to the conclusion that the hour and the man of our redemption had somehow met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. It mattered little to us what language he might employ on special occasions; it mattered little to us, when we fully knew him, whether he was swift or slow in his movements; it was enough for us that Abraham Lincoln was at the head of a great movement, and was in living and earnest sympathy with that movement, which, in the nature of things, must go on until slavery should be utterly and forever abolished in the United States.

Source: The Struggle of the Modern (1963), Ch. 5
Context: The prose method might be described as that where the writer provides a complete description of all those material factors in the environment which condition his characters. The poetic method sees the centre of consciousness as the point where all that is significant in the surrounding world becomes aware and transformed; the prose method requires a description of that world in order to explain the characteristics of the people in it. The hero of the poetic method is Rimbaud; of the prose method, Balzac.

American Photo (January/February 2000), p. 90
Context: Growing up, I was surrounded by Nazi imagery, like everybody in Germany, and for a boy obsessed with photography it left an indelible impression on me. Later this influence was tempered by Brassaï and Dr. Erich Salomon. My love of photography at night started with m early experience of … the Brelin undergrund stations. Even today I love photographing by the light of street lamps or in the glare of my flash.

His official report on the Battle of Little Round Top, as published in the U.S. Congressional Record
Context: The enemy seemed to have gathered all their energies for their final assault. We had gotten our thin line into as good a shape as possible, when a strong force emerged from the scrub wood in the valley, as well as I could judge, in two lines in echelon by the right, and, opening a heavy fire, the first line came on as if they meant to sweep everything before them. We opened on them as well as we could with our scanty ammunition snatched from the field.
It did not seem possible to withstand another shock like this now coming on. Our loss had been severe. One-half of my left wing had fallen, and a third of my regiment lay just behind us, dead or badly wounded. At this moment my anxietv was increased by a great roar of musketry in my rear, on the farther or northerly slope of Little Round Top, apparently on the flank of the regular brigade, which was in support of Hazlett's battery on the crest behind us. The bullets from this attack struck into my left rear, and I feared that the enemy might have nearly surrounded the Little Round Top, and only a desperate chance was left for us. My ammunition was soon exhausted. My men were firing their last shot and getting ready to "club" their muskets.
It was imperative to strike before we were struck by this overwhelming force in a hand-to-hand fight, which we could not probably have withstood or survived. At that crisis, I ordered the bayonet. The word was enough. It ran like fire along the line, from man to man; and rose into a shout, with which they sprang forward upon the enemy, now not 30 yards away. The effect was surprising; many of the enemy's first line threw down their arms and surrendered. An officer fired his pistol at my head with one hand, while he handed me his sword with the other. Holding fast by our right, and swinging forward our left, we made an extended " right wheel," before which the enemy's second line broke and fell back, fighting from tree to tree, many being captured, until we had swept the valley and cleared the front of nearly our entire brigade.

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 108.
Context: There are two ways of defending a castle; one by shutting yourself up in it, and guarding every loop-hole; the other by making it an open centre of operations from which all the surrounding country may be subdued. Is not the last the truest safety? Jesus was never guarding Himself, but always invading the lives of others with His holiness. There never was such an open life as His; and yet the force with which His character and love flowed out upon the world kept back, more strongly than any granite wall of prudent caution could have done, the world from pressing in on Him. His life was like an open stream which keeps the sea from flowing up into it by the eager force with which it flows down into the sea. He was so anxious that the world should be saved that therein was His salvation from the world. He labored so to make the world pure that He never even had to try to be pure Himself.

Source: Who Is Man? (1965), Ch. 5<!-- Manipulation and appreciation, p. 82 -->
Context: There are two primary ways in which mans relates himself to the world that surround him: manipulation and appreciation. In the first way he sees in what surrounds him things to be handled, forces to be managed, objects to be put to use. In the second way he sees in what surrounds him things to be acknowledged, understood, valued or admired.

Winston Churchill, in "The Defence of Freedom and Peace (The Lights are Going Out)", radio broadcast to the United States and to London (16 October 1938).
The 1930s
Context: People say we ought not to allow ourselves to be drawn into a theoretical antagonism between Nazidom and democracy; but the antagonism is here now. It is this very conflict of spiritual and moral ideas which gives the free countries a great part of their strength. You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. On all sides they are guarded by masses of armed men, cannons, aeroplanes, fortifications, and the like — they boast and vaunt themselves before the world, yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts; words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home — all the more powerful because forbidden — terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words; they are afraid of the workings of the human mind. Cannons, airplanes, they can manufacture in large quantities; but how are they to quell the natural promptings of human nature, which after all these centuries of trial and progress has inherited a whole armoury of potent and indestructible knowledge?

Coming Out Speech (2014)
Context: It’s such an honor to be here at the inaugural Time to THRIVE conference. But it’s a little weird, too. Here I am, in this room because of an organization whose work I deeply admire. And I’m surrounded by people who make it their life’s work to make other people’s lives better—profoundly better. Some of you teach young people—people like me. Some of you help young people heal and to find their voice. Some of you listen. Some of you take action. Some of you are young people yourselves…in which case, it’s even weirder for a person like me to be speaking to you.

Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1965)
Context: Propaganda tries to surround man by all possible routes in the realm of feelings as well as ideas, by playing on his will or on his needs, through his conscious and his unconscious, assailing him in both his private and his public life. It furnishes him with a complete system for explaining the world, and provides immediate incentives to action. We are here in the presence of an organized myth that tries to take hold of the entire person. Through the myth it creates, propaganda imposes a complete range of intuitive knowledge, susceptible of only one interpretation, unique and one-sided, and precluding any divergence. This myth becomes so powerful that it invades every arena of consciousness, leaving no faculty or motivation intact. It stimulates in the individual a feeling of exclusiveness, and produces a biased attitude.

Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
Context: There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.
Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.
Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.
Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.
That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations.
Those minds whose attention and love are turned towards that reality are the sole intermediary through which good can descend from there and come among men.
Although it is beyond the reach of any human faculties, man has the power of turning his attention and love towards it.
Nothing can ever justify the assumption that any man, whoever he may be, has been deprived of this power.
It is a power which is only real in this world in so far as it is exercised. The sole condition for exercising it is consent.
This act of consent may be expressed, or it may not be, even tacitly; it may not be clearly conscious, although it has really taken place in the soul. Very often it is verbally expressed although it has not in fact taken place. But whether expressed or not, the one condition suffices: that it shall in fact have taken place.
To anyone who does actually consent to directing his attention and love beyond the world, towards the reality that exists outside the reach of all human faculties, it is given to succeed in doing so. In that case, sooner or later, there descends upon him a part of the good, which shines through him upon all that surrounds him.

Spacetime Tsunami http://www.deoxy.org/t_sunami.htm, Interview with Carla Sinclair, bOING bOING #10.
Variant: I think people have a very narrow conception of what is possible with reality, that we're surrounded by the howling abyss of the unknowable and nobody knows what's out there.
Context: I think that people don't understand. As the Firesign Theater used to say, 'Everything you know is wrong.' But that is a very liberating understanding, because if everything you know is wrong, then all the problems you thought were insoluble can be framed differently. And there's a way to take the world apart and put it back unrecognizably. We don't really understand what consciousness is at the really deep levels. With some of the tryptamine hallucinogens, you see into possibilities where questions like, 'are you alive?' 'are you dead?' 'are you you?' seem to have been transcended. I think people have a very narrow conception of what is possible with reality, that we're surrounded by the howling abyss of the unknowable and nobody knows what's out there.

The Uttarpara Address (1909)
Context: I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva who surrounded me. I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell but it was not the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Sri Krishna whom I saw standing there and holding over me his shade. I looked at the bars of my cell, the very grating that did duty for a door and again I saw Vasudeva. It was Narayana who was guarding and standing sentry over me. Or I lay on the coarse blankets that were given me for a couch and felt the arms of Sri Krishna around me, the arms of my Friend and Lover. This was the first use of the deeper vision He gave me. I looked at the prisoners in the jail, the thieves, the murderers, the swindlers, and as I looked at them I saw Vasudeva, it was Narayana whom I found in these darkened souls and misused bodies.

answers the ingenuous soul, with visions of the envy of surrounding flunkies dawning on him; and in very many cases decides that he will contract himself into beaverism, and with such a horse-draught of gold, emblem of a never-imagined success in beaver heroism, strike the surrounding flunkies yellow. This is our common course; this is in some sort open to every creature, what we call the beaver career; perhaps more open in England, taking in America too, than it ever was in any country before. And, truly, good consequences follow out of it: who can be blind to them? Half of a most excellent and opulent result is realized to us in this way; baleful only when it sets up (as too often now) for being the whole result.
1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)

"Kafka in the Present Day", originally published in [London] Sunday Times (1983)
A User's Guide to the Millennium (1996)
Context: Human beings today … are surrounded by huge institutions we can never penetrate: the City [London's Wall Street], the banking system, political and advertising conglomerates, vast entertainment enterprises. They've made themselves user friendly, but they define the tastes to which we conform. They're rather subtle, subservient tyrants, but no less sinister for that.

Preface
His Master's Voice (1968)
Context: Clarity of thought is a shining point in a vast expanse of unrelieved darkness. Genius is not so much a light as it is a constant awareness of the surrounding gloom, and its typical cowardice is to bathe in its own glow and avoid, as much as possible, looking out beyond its boundary. No matter how much genuine strength it may contain, there is also, inevitably, a considerable part that is only the pretense of that strength.

Foreword http://www.psychedelic-library.org/childf.htm
LSD : My Problem Child (1980)
Context: There are experiences that most of us are hesitant to speak about, because they do not conform to everyday reality and defy rational explanation. These are not particular external occurrences, but rather events of our inner lives, which are generally dismissed as figments of the imagination and barred from our memory. Suddenly, the familiar view of our surroundings is transformed in a strange, delightful, or alarming way: it appears to us in a new light, takes on a special meaning. Such an experience can be as light and fleeting as a breath of air, or it can imprint itself deeply upon our minds.
One enchantment of that kind, which I experienced in childhood, has remained remarkably vivid in my memory ever since. It happened on a May morning — I have forgotten the year — but I can still point to the exact spot where it occurred, on a forest path on Martinsberg above Baden, Switzerland. As I strolled through the freshly greened woods filled with bird song and lit up by the morning sun, all at once everything appeared in an uncommonly clear light. Was this something I had simply failed to notice before? Was I suddenly discovering the spring forest as it actually looked? It shone with the most beautiful radiance, speaking to the heart, as though it wanted to encompass me in its majesty. I was filled with an indescribable sensation of joy, oneness, and blissful security.
I have no idea how long I stood there spellbound. But I recall the anxious concern I felt as the radiance slowly dissolved and I hiked on: how could a vision that was so real and convincing, so directly and deeply felt — how could it end so soon? And how could I tell anyone about it, as my overflowing joy compelled me to do, since I knew there were no words to describe what I had seen? It seemed strange that I, as a child, had seen something so marvelous, something that adults obviously did not perceive — for I had never heard them mention it.
While still a child, I experienced several more of these deeply euphoric moments on my rambles through forest and meadow. It was these experiences that shaped the main outlines of my world view and convinced me of the existence of a miraculous, powerful, unfathomable reality that was hidden from everyday sight.

The Renaissance in India (1918)
Context: Spirituality is indeed the master key of the Indian mind; the sense of the infinite is native to it. India saw from the beginning, — and, even in her ages of reason and her age of increasing ignorance, she never lost hold of the insight, — that life cannot be rightly seen in the sole light, cannot be perfectly lived in the sole power of its externalities. She was alive to the greatness of material laws and forces; she had a keen eye for the importance of the physical sciences; she knew how to organize the arts of ordinary life. But she saw that the physical does not get its full sense until it stands in right relation to the supra-physical; she saw that the complexity of the universe could not be explained in the present terms of man or seen by his superficial sight, that there were other powers behind, other powers within man himself of which he is normally unaware, that he is conscious only of a small part of himself, that the invisible always surrounds the visible, the supra-sensible the sensible, even as infinity always surrounds the finite. She saw too that man has the power of exceeding himself, of becoming himself more entirely and profoundly than he is, — truths which have only recently begun to be seen in Europe and seem even now too great for its common intelligence.
She saw the myriad gods, and beyond God his own ineffable eternity; she saw that there were ranges of life beyond our present life, ranges of mind beyond our present mind and above these she saw the splendors of the spirit. Then with that calm audacity of her intuition which knew no fear or littleness and shrank from no act whether of spiritual or intellectual, ethical or vital courage, she declared that there was none of these things which man could not attain if he trained his will and knowledge; he could conquer these ranges of mind, become the spirit, become a god, become one with God, become the ineffable Brahman.

Address to the Society for Psychical Research (1897)
Context: The human creature represents the most perfect thinking and acting machine yet evolved on this earth, developing through countless ages in strict harmony with the surrounding conditions of temperature, atmosphere, light, and gravitation. The profound modifications in the human frame, which any important alteration in either of these factors would occasion, are strangely unconsidered. It is true there have been questionings as to the effects that might be occasioned by changes in temperature and atmospheric composition, but possible variations in gravitation seem almost to have escaped notice. The human body, which long experience and habit have taught us to consider in its highest development as the perfection of beauty and grace — "formed in the image of God " — is entirely conditioned by the strength of gravitation on this globe. So far as has been possible to ascertain, the intensity of gravity has not varied appreciably within those geologic ages covering the existence of animated thinking beings.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
Context: It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; he was a little black dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose.

Keeping Life Out of Confusion (1938)
Context: When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled "made in Germany"; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, "Americanism." … The high-sounding phrase "the American way" will be used by interested groups intent on profit, to cover a multitude of sins against the American and Christian tradition, such sins as lawless violence, teargas and shotguns, denial of civil liberties … There is an obligation resting on us all to dedicate our minds to the hard task of thinking in terms of Christian objectives and values, so that we may be saved from moral confusion.
For never, probably, has there been a time when there was a more vigorous effort to surround social and international questions with such a fog of distortion and prejudices and hysterical appeal to fear. We have touched a new low in a Congressional investigation this Summer, used by some participating in it to whip up fear and prejudice against many causes of human welfare, such as concern for peace and the rights of labor to bargain collectively.

Source: Christ's Object Lessons (1900), Ch. 1, p. 22
Context: Christ had truths to present which the people were unprepared to accept or even to understand. For this reason also He taught them in parables. By connecting His teaching with the scenes of life, experience, or nature, He secured their attention and impressed their hearts. Afterward, as they looked upon the objects that illustrated His lessons, they recalled the words of the divine Teacher. To minds that were open to the Holy Spirit, the significance of the Saviour's teaching unfolded more and more. Mysteries grew clear, and that which had been hard to grasp became evident.
Jesus sought an avenue to every heart. By using a variety of illustrations, He not only presented truth in its different phases, but appealed to the different hearers. Their interest was aroused by figures drawn from the surroundings of their daily life. None who listened to the Saviour could feel that they were neglected or forgotten. The humblest, the most sinful, heard in His teaching a voice that spoke to them in sympathy and tenderness.
And He had another reason for teaching in parables. Among the multitudes that gathered about Him, there were priests and rabbis, scribes and elders, Herodians and rulers, world-loving, bigoted, ambitious men, who desired above all things to find some accusation against Him. Their spies followed His steps day after day, to catch from His lips something that would cause His condemnation, and forever silence the One who seemed to draw the world after Him. The Saviour understood the character of these men, and He presented truth in such a way that they could find nothing by which to bring His case before the Sanhedrim. In parables He rebuked the hypocrisy and wicked works of those who occupied high positions, and in figurative language clothed truth of so cutting a character that had it been spoken in direct denunciation, they would not have listened to His words, and would speedily have put an end to His ministry. But while He evaded the spies, He made truth so clear that error was manifested, and the honest in heart were profited by His lessons.

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 78

What I Didn't Find in Africa (2003)
Context: Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government.
The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses.

Pointed to a sign on the wall: a spider with a line through it. "Oh, fair enough."
He said "I can offer you an upgrade, fifty quid, and we can include in it policies set in place by the Marquis de Laplace, the French scientist who declared that all things in the universe are predetermined, so you would be covered even if time-travel was invented during the period of rental.”
I said, "Nah, probably leave it."
Part Troll (2004)

Lectures on Education delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, London, 1855, published in "What Knowledge is of Most Worth", The Westminster Review (July 1859) volume CXLI, p. 1-23, at p. 19 http://books.google.com/books?id=5NQ6AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA19
Context: The current opinion that science and poetry are opposed is a delusion. … Think you that a drop of water, which to the vulgar eye is but a drop of water, loses any thing in the eye of the physicist who knows that its elements are held together by a force which, if suddenly liberated, would produce a flash of lightning? Think you that what is carelessly looked upon by the uninitiated as a mere snow-flake does not suggest higher associations to one who has seen through a microscope the wondrously varied and elegant forms of snow-crystals? Think you that the rounded rock marked with parallel scratches calls up as much poetry in an ignorant mind as in the mind of a geologist, who knows that over this rock a glacier slid a million years ago? The truth is, that those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.

Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
Context: Kekulé dreams the Great Serpent holding its own tail in its mouth, the dreaming Serpent which surrounds the World. But the meanness, the cynicism with which this dream is to be used. The Serpent that announces, "The World is a closed thing, cyclical, resonant, eternally-returning," is to be delivered into a system whose only aim is to violate the Cycle. Taking and not giving back, demanding that "productivity" and "earnings" keep on increasing with time, the System removing from the rest of the World these vast quantities of energy to keep its own tiny desperate fraction showing a profit: and not only most of humanity — most of the World, animal, vegetable, and mineral, is laid waste in the process. The System may or may not understand that it's only buying time. And that time is an artificial resource to being with, of no value to anyone or anything but the System, which must sooner or later crash to its death, when its addiction to energy has become more than the rest of the World can supply, dragging with it innocent souls all along the chain of life.

As quoted in Current Biography : Who's News and Why (1946) by Anna Rothe, p. 168

Source: Who Is Man? (1965), Ch. 5<!-- Manipulation and appreciation, p. 81 -->
Context: The sense of meaning is not born in ease and sloth. It comes after bitter trials, disappointments in the glitters, foundering, strandings. It is the marrow from the bone. There is no manna in our wilderness.
Thought is not bred apart from experience or from inner surroundings. Thinking is living, and no thought is bred in an isolated cell in the brain. No thought is an island.

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I
Context: We must do something to lead boys to look at the wonderful objects by which we are surrounded, and to examine them carefully. I don't think that lectures are of much use. They will now and then amuse, and may teach boys a little; and if the lectures are followed by examinations, they will teach more.