Sign in with Facebook
“For a long time I was continually putting off the next step in my exploration because I felt I ought to know more, knew there were many books written about these things, felt that I must read them all before I could go any further. Whenever I gave in to this impulse I found it disastrous. It took me years to learn that I must never begin my search by looking in books, never say, ‘I know too little, I must read some more before I start’, but that I must always observe first, express what I observed, and then, if I needed it, see what the books had to say.”
― A Life of One's Own
― A Life of One's Own
“From children to men we cage ourselves in patterns to avoid facing new problems and possible failure; after a while men become bored because there are no new problems. Such is life under the fear of failure.”
― The Dice Man
― The Dice Man
“If just looking could be so satisfying, why was I always striving to have things or to get things done? Certainly I had never suspected that the key to my private reality might lie in so apparently simple a skill as the ability to let the senses roam unfettered by purposes. I began to wonder whether eyes and ears might not have a wisdom of their own.”
― A Life of One's Own
― A Life of One's Own
“The alternative to being is reacting, and reacting interrupts being and annihilates.”
―
―
“... nothing is easier than to distance ourselves from great figures, whether through a negative interpretation or through idealization. Denigration and idealization are twins with the same basic motive: to avoid taking responsibility for the discoveries before us and to avoid taking responsibility for emulating the lives of great individuals. If we find severe flaws in the personality of the "genius," we can look upon him as some kind of genetic freak, closely linked to the madman, whose contributions were almost an incidental offshoot of his weird personality. If we consider the great man a triumphant genius with a basically unflawed personality, we can make small demands upon ourselves since we lack genius and possess flaws. Still another way of dealing with the great man is simply through indifference. One explains his loneliness and suffering through the kind of cliches Reich hated: "A genius is always one hundred years ahead of his time," or, "A genius always meets opposition in his lifetime."
The need for distance from greatness is especially intense when we are dealing with persons who make the implicit demand: You must change your life if you are truly to understand what I have discovered.”
― Fury On Earth: A Biography Of Wilhelm Reich
The need for distance from greatness is especially intense when we are dealing with persons who make the implicit demand: You must change your life if you are truly to understand what I have discovered.”
― Fury On Earth: A Biography Of Wilhelm Reich
S.R.L’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at S.R.L’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
S.R.L hasn't connected with their friends on Goodreads, yet.
Polls voted on by S.R.L
Lists liked by S.R.L
