“
The unfed mind devours itself.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.
”
”
Gore Vidal (Julian)
“
What a marshmallow. You should hold out for someone with a stronger stomach. Someone who laughs at the gore that makes weaker men vomit.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
“
Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
”
”
Gore Vidal (Screening History)
“
Write something, even if it's just a suicide note.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
It strikes me profoundly that the world is more often than not a bad and cruel place.
”
”
Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho)
“
Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Glavu gore. Ima i one vrste, srest ćeš ih, koji čitaju iz očiju kako ti srce kuca. Njih vredi čekati…
A onim drugima se nasmeši, mahni i odi.
To je sve što zaslužuju…
”
”
Đorđe Balašević
“
No good deed goes unpunished
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
It is not enough merely to win; others must lose.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
I’m not sentimental about anything. Life flows by, and you flow with it or you don’t. Move on and move out.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
We are the United States of Amnesia, we learn nothing because we remember nothing.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Ne vredi nam brinuti deco... Sve je to zapisano tamo negde gore u zvezdama...Aha... Samo je rukopis malo necitak? Kljuc je u nasim snovima. Snovi su ti cudesni rezervoari nasih buducnosti
”
”
Đorđe Balašević
“
I sometimes think it is because they are so bad at expressing themselves verbally that writers take to pen and paper in the first place
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Monotheism is easily the greatest disaster to befall the human race.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
To me, the best zombie movies aren’t the splatter fests of gore and violence with goofy characters and tongue in cheek antics. Good zombie movies show us how messed up we are, they make us question our station in society… and our society’s station in the world. They show us gore and violence and all that cool stuff too… but there’s always an undercurrent of social commentary and thoughtfulness.
”
”
Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead, Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye)
“
Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives describing sexual acts, not people. The sexual acts are entirely normal; if they were not, no one would perform them.
”
”
Gore Vidal (Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings)
“
Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!
”
”
Gore Vidal (The Essential Gore Vidal)
“
A human body in no way resembles those that were born for ravenousness; it hath no hawk’s bill, no sharp talon, no roughness of teeth, no such strength of stomach or heat of digestion, as can be sufficient to convert or alter such heavy and fleshy fare. But if you will contend that you were born to an inclination to such food as you have now a mind to eat, do you then yourself kill what you would eat. But do it yourself, without the help of a chopping-knife, mallet or axe, as wolves, bears, and lions do, who kill and eat at once. Rend an ox with thy teeth, worry a hog with thy mouth, tear a lamb or a hare in pieces, and fall on and eat it alive as they do. But if thou had rather stay until what thou eat is to become dead, and if thou art loath to force a soul out of its body, why then dost thou against nature eat an animate thing? There is nobody that is willing to eat even a lifeless and a dead thing even as it is; so they boil it, and roast it, and alter it by fire and medicines, as it were, changing and quenching the slaughtered gore with thousands of sweet sauces, that the palate being thereby deceived may admit of such uncouth fare.
”
”
Plutarch
“
Because secrets do not increase in value if kept in a gore-ian lockbox, because one's past is either made useful or else mutates and becomes cancerous. We share things for the obvious reasons: it makes us feel un-alone, it spreads the weight over a larger area, it holds the possibility of making our share lighter. And it can work either way - not simply as a pain-relief device, but, in the case of not bad news but good, as a share-the-happy-things-I've-seen/lessons-I've-learned vehicle. Or as a tool for simple connectivity for its own sake, a testing of waters, a stab at engagement with a mass of strangers.
”
”
Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius)
“
[Professor] Frank recalled my idle remark some years ago: 'Never pass up the opportunity to have sex or appear on television.' Advice I would never give today in the age of AIDS and its television equivalent Fox News.
”
”
Gore Vidal (Point to Point Navigation)
“
Always a godfather, never a god.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Ne bojim se ljubavi. Bojim se rizika. I zavisnosti. I moguceg bola.
Podrzavam u sebi spremnost na odstupanje. Da ne bude gore.”
—
”
”
Meša Selimović
“
The way I’d put it,” said Makin, “is that Rike can’t make an omelet without wading thigh deep in the blood of chickens and wearing their entrails as a necklace.
”
”
Mark Lawrence (King of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #2))
“
Here is the truth: The Earth is round; Saddam Hussein did not attack us on 9/11; Elvis is dead; Obama was born in the United States; and the climate crisis is real.
”
”
Al Gore
“
The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
To a born-again atheist like myself, it is clear that each of us has multiple selves, talents, perceptions. But to the Roman Catholic, unity is all.
”
”
Gore Vidal (At Home: Essays 1982-1988)
“
Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an IQ of 60.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Little Bush says we are at war, but we are not at war because to be
at war Congress has to vote for it. He says we are at war on terror,
but that is a metaphor, though I doubt if he knows what that means.
It's like having a war on dandruff, it's endless and pointless.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
The last introvert in a world of extroverts. Silence: my response to both emptiness and saturation. But silence frightens people. I had to learn how to talk. Out of politeness.
”
”
Ariel Gore (Atlas of the Human Heart)
“
There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
a writer must always tell the truth (unless he's a journalist)
”
”
Gore Vidal (The American Presidency)
“
The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton.
”
”
Al Gore
“
History is idle gossip about a happening whose truth is lost the instant it has taken place.
”
”
Gore Vidal (Julian)
“
I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small American town; they may be the backbone of the nation, but they are also the backbone of ignorance, bigotry, and boredom, all in vast quantities.
”
”
Gore Vidal (Death Before Bedtime)
“
As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Ne treba čovjek da se pretvori u svoju suprotnost. Sve što u njemu vrijedi, to je ranjivo. Možda nije lako živjeti na svijetu, ali ako mislimo da nam ovdje nije mjesto, biće još gore. A željeti snagu i bezosjećajnost, znači svetiti se sebi zbog razočarenja. I onda, to nije izlaz, to je dizanje ruku od svega što čovjek može da bude. Odricanje svih obzira je prastari strah, davna suština ljudskog bića koje želi moć, jer se boji.
”
”
Meša Selimović (Death and the Dervish)
“
You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
In a time of social fragmentation, vulgarity becomes a way of life. To be shocking becomes more important - and often more profitable - than to be civil or creative or truly original.
”
”
Al Gore
“
Southerners make good novelists: they have so many stories because they have so much family.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Your heart is the size of your fist; keep loving, keep fighting.
”
”
Ariel Gore (Atlas of the Human Heart)
“
Sumatra
Sad smo bezbrižni, laki i nežni.
Pomislimo: kako su tihi, snežni
vrhovi Urala.
Rastuži li nas kakav bledi lik,
što ga izgubismo jedno veče,
znamo da, negde, neki potok
mesto njega, rumeno teče!
Po jedna ljubav, jutro, u tuđini,
dušu nam uvija, sve tešnje,
beskrajnim mirom plavih mora,
iz kojih crvene zrna korala,
kao, iz zavičaja, trešnje.
Probudimo se noću i smešimo, drago,
na Mesec sa zapetim lukom.
I milujemo daleka brda
i ledene gore, blago, rukom.
”
”
Miloš Crnjanski
“
Love is a fan club with only two fans.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow. In the end it is a story of the ineluctable conflict between good and evil, daylight and darkness, the White City and the Black.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Devil in the White City)
“
For a vicious moment, Andrew thought about slipping his fingers into Thomas's cut. Taking hold of his rib and breaking it. Pulling the soft crumbling bone from his chest and sewing it into his own. They'd be forever together, rib against rib, fused in gore and bone and adoration.
”
”
C.G. Drews (Don't Let the Forest In)
“
Traitors who prevail are patriots; usurpers who succeed are divine emperors.
”
”
Gore Vidal (Julian)
“
Tanith frowned. Did people still go on DATES any more? She was sure they did. They probably called it something different though. She tried to think of the last date she'd been on. The last PROPER date. Did fighting side by side with Saracen Rue count as a date? They ended up snuggling under the moonlight, drenched in gore and pieces of brain - so it had PROBABLY been a date. If it wasn't, it was certainly a fun time had by all. Well, not ALL. But she and Saracen had sure had a blast.
”
”
Derek Landy (Mortal Coil (Skulduggery Pleasant, #5))
“
As I looked back over my life, I realized that I enjoyed nothing--not art, not sex--more than going to the movies.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Never offend an enemy in a small way.
”
”
Gore Vidal (Julian)
“
What is this?"
"It's a wedding invitation," Julie said.
"I didn't order any."
Julie grinned at me. "Roman."
Ugh. That's right. I waved the envelope at her. "It has flowers on it."
"Did you want gore, swords, and severed heads?" she asked.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Magic Binds (Kate Daniels, #9))
“
I suspect that one of the reasons we create fiction is to make sex exciting.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
The American press exists for one purpose only, and that is to convince Americans that they are living in the greatest and most envied country in the history of the world. The Press tells the American people how awful every other country is and how wonderful the United States is and how evil communism is and how happy they should be to have freedom to buy seven different sorts of detergent.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Victims exist in a society that tells us our purpose is to be an inspiring story. But sometimes the best we can do is tell you we're still here, and that should be enough. Denying darkness does not bring anyone closer to the light. When you hear a story about rape, all the graphic and unsettling details, resist the instinct to turn away; instead loo closer, because beneath the gore and the police reports is a whole, beautiful person, looking for ways to be in the world again.
”
”
Chanel Miller (Know My Name)
“
Never pass up a chance to have sex or appear on television.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
On the throne of the world, any delusion can become fact.
”
”
Gore Vidal (Julian)
“
Never have children, only grandchildren.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
This life is a virtual simulation game where you can win or lose, you can continue playing for the rest of your life or join the club. You decide! You only have to respect one rule because your stay in the human farm will depend on that, continue playing until the end no matter how many times you are brought into this reality, so stay awake with your eyes wide open and your mouth tight shut."
Welcome to the game of life, welcome to the matrix.
”
”
Marcos Orowitz (TALENT FOR HORROR 2: Special- Madame Jeanne Weber's shoes (Talent for Horror Series Book Revelation 2022))
“
Nothing human is finally calculable; even to ourselves we are strange.
”
”
Gore Vidal (Julian)
“
For the average American freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
”
”
Gore Vidal (Burr)
“
There is something about the state putting the power to bully into the hands of subnormal, sadistic apes that makes my blood boil.
”
”
Gore Vidal (Death in the Fifth Position (Peter Cutler Sargent II #1))
“
... As Lorcan stared down at Lysandra, his blood-splattered face impassive. "Out of the way, shifter."
Lysandra had held up a slender hand- and Lorcan paused. The shape-shifter pressed her other hand against her stomach, her face blanching. But then she smiled and said, "You forgot to say 'please.' "
Lorcan's dark brows flattened. "I don't have time for this." He made to step around her, shove her aside.
Lysandra vomited black blood all over him.
Rowan didn't know whether to laught or cringe as Lysandra, panting, gaped at Lorcan, and at the blood on his neck and chest. Slowly, too slowly, Lorcan looked down at himself.
She pressed a hand over her mouth. "I am-so sorry-"
Lorcan didn't even step out of the way as Lysandra vomited on him again, black blood and bits of gore now on the warrior and on the marble floor.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4))
“
How hungrily we read about ourselves!
”
”
Gore Vidal (Julian)
“
Old age means realizing you will never own all the dogs you wanted to.
”
”
Joe Gores
“
Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Reality is something the human race doesn't handle very well.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Ideally, of course, a relationship is best, but then how many people are capable of deep feeling? Practically none.
”
”
Gore Vidal (The City and the Pillar)
“
So furiously each other did assayle,
As if their soules they would attonce haue rent
Out of their brests, that streames of bloud did rayle
Adowne, as if their springes of life were spent;
That all the ground with purple bloud was sprent,
And all their armours staynd with bloudie gore,
Yet scarcely once to breath would they relent,
So mortall was their malice and so sore,
Become of fayned friendship which they vow'd afore.
”
”
Edmund Spenser (The Faerie Queene, Books Three and Four)
“
...their faces were wholly burned, their eyesockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks.
”
”
John Hersey (Hiroshima)
“
You really can't go through life wanting to be liked. It's the hardest lesson to learn. Once you say, "Fuck it, I don't care," once you've got that attitude, then it's easy to relax, to talk, laugh, cry, whatever.
”
”
Jimmy McDonough (The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan)
“
We affect one another quite enough merely by existing. Whenever the stars cross, or is it comets? fragments pass briefly from one orbit to another. On rare occasions there is total collision, but most often the two simply continue without incident, neither losing more than a particle to the other, in passing.
”
”
Gore Vidal (The City and the Pillar)
“
In fact, life itself is a contradiction if only because birth is the direct cause, in every single case, of death
”
”
Gore Vidal (Creation)
“
Although Americans justify their self-interest in moral terms, their true interest is never itself moral.
”
”
Gore Vidal (Burr)
“
I'm exactly as I appear. There is no warm lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Of course his dust would be absorbed in other living things and to that degree at least he would exist again, though it was plain enough that the specific combination which was he would never exist again.
”
”
Gore Vidal (The City and the Pillar)
“
The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity—much less dissent.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
If they let you out,” Kaltain said, both of them staring into the blackness of their prisons, “make sure that they're punished someday. Every last one of them.”
Celaena listened to her own breathing, felt Chaol's blood under her nails, and the blood of all those men she'd hacked down, and the coldness of Nehemia's room, where all that gore had soaked the bed.
“They will be,” Celaena swore to the darkness.
She had nothing left to give, except that.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass, #2))
“
Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds? … It is certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defense; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless, tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their beauty and grace. But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like tinting of the flesh, not the persuasiveness of the harmonious voice, not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence that may be found in the poor wretches. No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by birth and being.
”
”
Plutarch (Moralia)
“
The malady of civilized man is his knowledge of death. The good artist, like the wise man, addresses himself to life and invests with his private vision the deeds and thoughts of men. The creation of a work of art, like an act of love, is our one small yes at the center of a vast no.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
It was always hard work to push through a crowed of reporters with the scent of blood in their nostrils. You might not think so, since on camera they appear to be brain-damaged wimps with severe eating disorders. But put them at a police barricade and a miraculous thing happens...The strength comes from some mysterious place-and somehow, when there is gore on the ground, these anorexic creatures can push their way through anything. Without mussing their hair, too.
”
”
Jeff Lindsay (Darkly Dreaming Dexter (Dexter, #1))
“
Strange that men, from age to age, should consent to hold their lives at the breath of another, merely that each in his turn may have a power of acting the tyrant according to the law! Oh, God! give me poverty! Shower upon me all the imaginary hardships of human life! I will receive them with all thankfulness. Turn me a prey to the wild beasts of the desert, so I be never again the victim of man, dressed in the gore-dripping robes of authority! Suffer me at least to call life, the pursuits of life, my own! Let me hold it at the mercy of the elements, of the hunger of the beasts, or the revenge of barbarians, but not of the cold-blooded prudence of monopolists and kings!
”
”
William Godwin (Caleb Williams)
“
There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
Because there is no cosmic point to the life that each of us perceives on this distant bit of dust at galaxy's edge, all the more reason for us to maintain in proper balance what we have here. Because there is nothing else. Nothing. This is it. And quite enough, all in all.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
The most interesting thing about writing is the way that it obliterates time. Three hours seem like three minutes. Then there is the business of surprise. I never know what is coming next. The phrase that sounds in the head changes when it appears on the page. Then I start probing it with a pen, finding new meanings. Sometimes I burst out laughing at what is happening as I twist and turn sentences. Strange business, all in all. One never gets to the end of it. That’s why I go on, I suppose. To see what the next sentences I write will be.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
That kind of thinking [that writers must alleviate their guilt for leading a creative life] is based on the idea that the creative life is somehow self-indulgent. Artists and writers have to understand and live the truth that what we are doing is nourishing the world. William Carlos Williams said, "It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." You can't eat a book, right, but books have saved my life more often than sandwiches. And they've saved your life... But we don't say, oh, Maya Angelou should have silenced herself because other people have other destinies. It's interesting, because artists are always encouraged to feel guilty about their work. Why? Why don't we ask predatory bankers how they alleviate their guilt?
”
”
Ariel Gore
“
Of all the lessons I’ve learned in my months with Mabel this is the greatest of all: that there is a world of things out there – rocks and trees and stones and grass and all the things that crawl and run and fly. They are all things in themselves, but we make them sensible to us by giving them meanings that shore up our own views of the world. In my time with Mabel I’ve learned how you feel more human once you have known, even in your imagination, what it is like to be not. And I have learned, too, the danger that comes in mistaking the wildness we give a thing for the wildness that animates it. Goshawks are things of death and blood and gore, but they are not excuses for atrocities. Their inhumanity is to be treasured because what they do has nothing to do with us at all.
”
”
Helen Macdonald (H is for Hawk)
“
Alright! You sir, you sir, how about a shave?
Come and visit your good friend Sweeney.
You sir, too sir? Welcome to the grave.
I will have vengenance.
I will have salvation.
Who sir, you sir?
No ones in the chair, Come on! Come on!
Sweeney's. waiting. I want you bleeders.
You sir! Anybody!
Gentlemen now don't be shy!
Not one man, no, nor ten men.
Nor a hundred can assuage me.
I will have you!
And I will get him back even as he gloats
In the meantime I'll practice on less honorable throats.
And my Lucy lies in ashes
And I'll never see my girl again.
But the work waits!
I'm alive at last!
And I'm full of joy!
”
”
Stephen Sondheim (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street)
“
If one starts with the anatomical difference, which even a patriarchal Viennese novelist was able to see was destiny, then one begins to understand why men and women don't get on very well within marriage, or indeed in any exclusive sort of long-range sexual relationship. He is designed to make as many babies as possible with as many different women as he can get his hands on, while she is designed to take time off from her busy schedule as astronaut or role model to lay an egg and bring up the result. Male and female are on different sexual tracks, and that cannot be changed by the Book or any book. Since all our natural instincts are carefully perverted from birth, it is no wonder that we tend to be, if not all of us serial killers, killers of our own true nature.
”
”
Gore Vidal
“
It is the fate of great achievements, born from a way of life that sets truth before security, to be gobbled up by you and excreted in the form of shit. For centuries great, brave, lonely men have been telling you what to do. Time and again you have corrupted, diminished and demolished their teachings; time and again you have been captivated by their weakest points, taken not the great truth, but some trifling error as your guiding principal. This, little man, is what you have done with Christianity, with the doctrine of sovereign people, with socialism, with everything you touch. Why, you ask, do you do this? I don't believe you really want an answer. When you hear the truth you'll cry bloody murder, or commit it. … You had your choice between soaring to superhuman heights with Nietzsche and sinking into subhuman depths with Hitler. You shouted Heil! Heil! and chose the subhuman. You had the choice between Lenin's truly democratic constitution and Stalin's dictatorship. You chose Stalin's dictatorship. You had your choice between Freud's elucidation of the sexual core of your psychic disorders and his theory of cultural adaptation. You dropped the theory of sexuality and chose his theory of cultural adaptation, which left you hanging in mid-air. You had your choice between Jesus and his majestic simplicity and Paul with his celibacy for priests and life-long compulsory marriage for yourself. You chose the celibacy and compulsory marriage and forgot the simplicity of Jesus' mother, who bore her child for love and love alone. You had your choice between Marx's insight into the productivity of your living labor power, which alone creates the value of commodities and the idea of the state. You forgot the living energy of your labor and chose the idea of the state. In the French Revolution, you had your choice between the cruel Robespierre and the great Danton. You chose cruelty and sent greatness and goodness to the guillotine. In Germany you had your choice between Goring and Himmler on the one hand and Liebknecht, Landau, and Muhsam on the other. You made Himmler your police chief and murdered your great friends. You had your choice between Julius Streicher and Walter Rathenau. You murdered Rathenau. You had your choice between Lodge and Wilson. You murdered Wilson. You had your choice between the cruel Inquisition and Galileo's truth. You tortured and humiliated the great Galileo, from whose inventions you are still benefiting, and now, in the twentieth century, you have brought the methods of the Inquisition to a new flowering. … Every one of your acts of smallness and meanness throws light on the boundless wretchedness of the human animal. 'Why so tragic?' you ask. 'Do you feel responsible for all evil?' With remarks like that you condemn yourself. If, little man among millions, you were to shoulder the barest fraction of your responsibility, the world would be a very different place. Your great friends wouldn't perish, struck down by your smallness.
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Wilhelm Reich (Listen, Little Man!)
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No! I don't want to speak of that! But I'm going to. I want you to hear. I want you to know what's in store for you. There will be days when you'll look at your hands and you'll want to take something and smash every bone in them, because they'll be taunting you with what they could do, if you found a chance for them to do it, and you can't find that chance, and you can't bear your living body because it has failed those hands somewhere. There will be days when a bus driver will snap at you as you enter a bus, and he'll be only asking for a dime, but that won't be what you hear; you'll hear that you're nothing, that he's laughing at you, that it's written on your forehead, that thing they hate you for. There will be days when you'll stand in the corner of a hall and listen to a creature on a platform talking about buildings, about the work you love, and the things he'll say will make you wait for somebody to rise and crack him open between two thumbnails; and then you'll hear people applauding him, and you'll want to scream, because you won't know whether they're real or you are, whether you're in a room full of gored skulls, or whether someone has just emptied your own head, and you'll say nothing, because the sounds you could make - they're not a language in that room any longer; but you'd want to speak, you won't anyway, because you'll be brushed aside, you who have nothing to tell them about buildings! Is that what you want?
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Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead)
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There's a class of things to be afraid of: it's "those things that you should be afraid of". Those are the things that go bump in the night, right? You're always exposed to them when you go to horror movies, especially if they're not the gore type of horror movie. They're always hinting at something that's going on outside of your perceptual sphere, and they frighten you because you don't know what's out there. For that the Blair Witch Project was a really good example, because nothing ever happens in that movie but it's frightenting and not gory. It plays on the fact tht you do have a category of Those Things Of Which You Should Be Afraid. So it's a category, frightening things. And only things capable of abstraction can come up with something like the caregory of frightenting things.
And so Kali is like an embodied representation of the category of frightening things. And then you might ask yourself, well once you come up with the concept of the category of frightening things, maybe you can come up with the concept of what to do in the face of frightening things. Which is not the same as "what do you do when you encounter a lion", or "what do you do when you encounter someone angry". It's a meta question, right?
But then you could say, at a philosophical level: "You will encounter elements of the category of all those things which can frighten and undermine you during your life. Is there something that you can do *as a category* that would help you deal with that." And the answer is yeah, there is in fact. And that's what a lot of religious stories and symbolic stories are trying to propose to you, is the solution to that. One is, approach it voluntarily. Carefully, but voluntarily. Don't freeze and run away. Explore, instead. You expose yourself to risk but you gain knowledge.
And you wouldn't have a cortex which, you know, is ridiculously disproportionate, if as a species we hadn't decided that exploration trumps escape or freezing. We explore. That can make you the master of a situation, so you can be the master of something like fire without being terrified of it.
One of the things that the Hindus do in relationship to Kali, is offer sacrifices. So you can say, well why would you offer sacrifices to something you're afraid of. And it's because that is what you do, that's always what you do. You offer up sacrifices to the unknown in the hope that good things will happen to you.
One example is that you're worried about your future. Maybe you're worried about your job, or who you're going to marry, or your family, there's a whole category of things to be worried about, so you're worried about your future. SO what're you doing in university? And the answer is you're sacrificing your free time in the present, to the cosmos so to speak, in the hope that if you offer up that sacrifice properly, the future will smile upon you. And that's one of the fundamental discoveries of the human race. And it's a big deal, that discovery: by changing what you cling to in the present, you can alter the future.
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Jordan B. Peterson