Ben Wolfe > Ben's Quotes

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#1

“Environmentalists, by and large, are very deeply invested in tactics that have worked to their satisfaction over the last thirty years, namely scaring and shaming people.... I am questioning whether you can go on doing that indefinitely ... [pushing] that same fear-guilt button over and over again. As psychologists will tell you, when a client comes in with an addiction, they are already ashamed. You don't shame them further.”
― Theodore Roszak

15 likes

#2

“It may, after all, be the bad habit of creative talents to invest themselves in pathological extremes that yield remarkable insights but no durable way of life for those who cannot translate their psychic wounds into significant art or thought.”
― Theodore Roszak

tags: creative

43 likes

#3

“Deprived of bread or the equal benefits of the commonwealth, the person shrivels. Obviously. And that is a clear line to fight on. But when the transcendent energies waste away, then too the person shrivels--though far less obviously. Their loss is suffered in privacy and bewildered silence; it is easily submerged in affluence, entertaining diversions, and adjustive therapy. Well fed and fashionably dressed, surrounded by every manner of mechanical convenience and with our credit rating in good order, we may even be ashamed to feel we have any problem at all.”
― Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends

3 likes

#4

“The more people have time to experience the joys of creativity, the less they will be consumers, especially of mass-produced culture. I see that as a kind of new wealth that counts for more than owning material things. I also see art as something people will do rather than consume, and do it as a natural part of their lives; creative endeavors are a form of profound spiritual satisfaction.”
― Theodore Roszak

tags: art, consumerism, creativity, culture, makers, spiritual-satisfaction

10 likes

#5

“Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.”
― Alan Watts

3530 likes

#6

“We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.”
― Alan Watts

tags: civilization, culture, names, power-of-words, responsibility, wisdom

1801 likes

#7

“Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

tags: buddhism, metaphysics, philosophy, religion, tao, taoism, theology, zen

2043 likes

#8

“Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

tags: love

6641 likes

#9

“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader and the Imagination

3547 likes

#10

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

tags: action, attitude, choice, imagination, inspiration, life, pretend

18011 likes

#11

“Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

tags: humour, telekinetics

10125 likes

#12

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano

7563 likes

#13

“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC”
― kurt vonnegut

4301 likes

#14

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young

tags: creativity, invention, quip, wings, writing

4371 likes

#15

“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

tags: art, arts-and-humanities, creative-process, writing

4458 likes

#16

“Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

tags: fact

3988 likes

#17

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

tags: life, love

3748 likes

#18

“Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

tags: hindsight, regret

3228 likes

#19

“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., A Man Without a Country

3164 likes

#20

“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

2234 likes

#21

“Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

tags: frustration, humor, laughter

2182 likes

#22

“Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

tags: afterlife, atheism, humanism, secularism

2183 likes

#23

“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

tags: high-school, terror

1670 likes

#24

“Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

tags: reason, time

2222 likes

#25

“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

tags: life, nature, philosophy

2746 likes

#26

“The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

tags: humor

1410 likes

#27

“Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

tags: not-alone

1431 likes

#28

“Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?”
― Kurt Vonnegut

tags: censorship, freedom, writers-block, writing

960 likes

#29

“In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness.

And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.

"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.

"Certainly," said man.

"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.

And He went away.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

tags: creation, meaning-of-life, purpose

1658 likes

#30

“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

1394 likes

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