Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of read more

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.

In the world of reality, life, and human action there is no such thing as interests independent of ideas, preceding read more

In the world of reality, life, and human action there is no such thing as interests independent of ideas, preceding them temporarily and logically. What a man considers his interest is the result of his ideas.

If your dream is a big dream, and if you want your life to work on the high level that read more

If your dream is a big dream, and if you want your life to work on the high level that you say you do, there's no way around doing the work it takes to get you there.

The hardest part of gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche.

The hardest part of gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche.

Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.

Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.

Any young person who has studied Heidegger; or seen Ionesco's 'plays'; or listened to the 'music' of John Cage; or read more

Any young person who has studied Heidegger; or seen Ionesco's 'plays'; or listened to the 'music' of John Cage; or looked at Andy Warhol's 'paintings'- has experienced that feeling of incredulous puzzlement: But this is nonsense! Can I really be expected to take this seriously?In fact, of course, it is necessary for it to be nonsense; if it made sense, it could be evaluated. The essence of modern intellectual snobbery is the 'emperor's new cloths' approach. Teachers, critics, our self-appointed intellectual elite, make it quite clear to us that if we cannot see the superlative nature of this 'art'- why, it merely shows our ignorance, our lack of sophistication and insight. Of course, they go beyond the storybook emperor's tailors, who dressed their victim in nothing and called it fine garments. The modern tailors dress the emperor in garbage.

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the read more

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.

Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us.

Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us.

Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild harmless, rather read more

Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.