In the society of men, the truth resides now less in what things are than in what they are not. Our social realities are so ugly if seen in the light of exiled truth, and beauty is almost no longer possible if it is not a lie.
—R.D. Laing, 1967
Archive
Quotes
The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.
—Gaston Bachelard, 1960Men have written in the most convincing manner to prove that death is no evil, and this opinion has been confirmed on a thousand celebrated occasions by the weakest of men as well as by heroes. Even so I doubt whether any sensible person has ever believed it, and the trouble men take to convince others as well as themselves that they do shows clearly that it is no easy undertaking.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1665Ours is an age which consciously pursues health, and yet only believes in the reality of sickness.
—Susan Sontag, 1963What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1830The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
—Charles Darwin, 1871The seeds of civilization are in every culture, but it is city life that brings them to fruition.
—Susanne K. Langer, 1962If there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.
—Thomas Paine, 1778The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 175O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!
—William Shakespeare, c. 1596In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.
—V.S. Pritchett, 1968Memory is necessary for all operations of reasoning.
—Blaise Pascal, c. 1658In settling an island, the first building erected by a Spaniard will be a church, by a Frenchman a fort, by a Dutchman a warehouse, and by an Englishman an alehouse.
—Francis Grose, 1787