The genuine creator creates something that has a life of its own, something that can exist and function without him. read more

The genuine creator creates something that has a life of its own, something that can exist and function without him. This is true not only of the writer, artist and scientist, but of creators in other fields...With the noncreative it is the other way around: in whatever they do, they arrange things so that they themselves become indispensable.

Thinking to get at once all the gold the Goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to read more

Thinking to get at once all the gold the Goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find,- nothing.

When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.

When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.

Habits... the only reason they persist is that they are offering some satisfaction. You allow them to persist by not read more

Habits... the only reason they persist is that they are offering some satisfaction. You allow them to persist by not seeking any other, better form of satisfying the same needs. Every habit, good or bad, is acquired and learned in the same way -- by finding that it is a means of satisfaction.

Evaluation and judgment are responses to what exists, sorting the things that pass before us into categories of good, bad, read more

Evaluation and judgment are responses to what exists, sorting the things that pass before us into categories of good, bad, and indifferent. But a rational life, the life of a valuer, does not consist essentially in reaction. It consists in action. Man does not find his values, like the other animals; he creates them. The primary focus of a valuer is not to take the world as it comes and pass judgment. His primary focus is to identify what might and ought to exist, to uncover potentialities that he can exploit, to find ways of reshaping the world in the image of his values.

Every animal is sad after coitus except the human female and the rooster.

Every animal is sad after coitus except the human female and the rooster.

Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains.

Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains.

Reason and action are congeneric and homogenous, two aspects of the same phenomenon.

Reason and action are congeneric and homogenous, two aspects of the same phenomenon.

We often use strong language not to express a powerful emotion but to evoke it in us.

We often use strong language not to express a powerful emotion but to evoke it in us.