Robert Anton Wilson > Quotes

“belief is the death of intelligence.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger: Die letzten Geheimnisse der Illuminaten oder An den Grenzen des erweiterten Bewusstseins

“The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“...an optimistic mind-set finds dozens of possible solutions for every problem that the pessimist regards as incurable.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger: Die letzten Geheimnisse der Illuminaten oder An den Grenzen des erweiterten Bewusstseins

“under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“...when dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases. ”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger - Volume I: Final Secret of the Illuminati

“I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“We all see only that which we are trained to see.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Masks of the Illuminati

“In order to eat, you have to be hungry. In order to learn, you have to be ignorant. Ignorance is a condition of learning. Pain is a condition of health. Passion is a condition of thought. Death is a condition of life.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Leviathan

“In conclusion, there is no conclusion. Things will go on as they always have, getting weirder all the time.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“We look for the Secret - the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir of the Wise, Supreme Enlightenment, 'God' or whatever...and all the time it is carrying us about...It is the human nervous system itself.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger - Volume I: Final Secret of the Illuminati

“...reality is always plural and mutable.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger - Volume I: Final Secret of the Illuminati

“Is," "is," "is"—the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Nature's God

“Human beings live in their myths. They only endure their realities.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“Horror is the natural reaction to the last 5,000 years of history.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Down to Earth

“It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminati Papers

“Every fact of science was once damned. Every invention was considered impossible. Every discovery was a nervous shock to some orthodoxy. Every artistic innovation was denounced as fraud and folly. The entire web of culture and ‘progress,’ everything on earth that is man-made and not given to us by nature, is the concrete manifestation of some man’s refusal to bow to Authority. We would own no more, know no more, and be no more than the first apelike hominids if it were not for the rebellious, the recalcitrant, and the intransigent. As Oscar Wilde truly said, ‘Disobedience was man’s Original Virtue.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“The normal is that which nobody quite is. If you listen to seemingly dull people very closely, you'll see that they're all mad in different and interesting ways, and are merely struggling to hide it.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Masks of the Illuminati

“Human society as a whole is a vast brainwashing machine whose semantic rules and sex roles create a social robot.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising

“When we meet somebody whose separate tunnel-reality is obviously far different from ours, we are a bit frightened and always disoriented. We tend to think they are mad, or that they are crooks trying to con us in some way, or that they are hoaxers playing a joke. Yet it is neurologically obvious that no two brains have the same genetically-programmed hard wiring, the same imprints, the same conditioning, the same learning experiences. We are all living in separate realities. That is why communication fails so often, and misunderstandings and resentments are so common. I say "meow" and you say "Bow-wow," and each of us is convinced the other is a bit dumb.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising

“The fear of death is the beginning of slavery.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, The Golden Apple

“Anyone in the United States today who isn't paranoid must be crazy.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminati Papers

“On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Down to Earth

“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger: Die letzten Geheimnisse der Illuminaten oder An den Grenzen des erweiterten Bewusstseins

“Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point. Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality-tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“Only the madman is absolutely sure.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Masks of the Illuminati

“Reality is what you can get away with.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Reality Is What You Can Get Away With

“The most thoroughly and relentlessly damned, banned, excluded, condemned, forbidden, ostracized, ignored, suppressed, repressed, robbed, brutalized and defamed of all 'Damned Things' is the individual human being. The social engineers, statisticians, psychologists, sociologists, market researchers, landlords, bureaucrats, captains of industry, bankers, governors, commissars, kings and presidents are perpetually forcing this 'Damned Thing' into carefully prepared blueprints and perpetually irritated that the 'Damned Thing' will not fit into the slot assigned it. The theologians call it a sinner and try to reform it. The governor calls it a criminal and tries to punish it. The psychologist calls it a neurotic and tries to cure it. Still, the 'Damned Thing' will not fit into their slots.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“The future is up for grabs. It belongs to any and all who will take the risk and accept the responsibility of consciously creating the future they want.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“But they can rule by fraud, and by fraud eventually acquire access to the tools they need to finish the job of killing off the Constitution.'

'What sort of tools?'

'More stringent security measures. Universal electronic surveillance. No-knock laws. Stop and frisk laws. Government inspection of first-class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests, and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime. A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest. Laws establishing detention camps for potential subversives. Gun control laws. Restrictions on travel. The assassinations, you see, establish the need for such laws in the public mind. Instead of realizing that there is a conspiracy, conducted by a handful of men, the people reason—or are manipulated into reasoning—that the entire population must have its freedom restricted in order to protect the leaders. The people agree that they themselves can't be trusted.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, The Eye in the Pyramid