William Lawrence

“THOUGHTS AND REALITY You’ve probably heard of Plato’s allegory of the cave. It’s a story narrated by Socrates in Plato’s Republic, a long work published in Greece almost 2,500 years ago. In the story, prisoners in a cave are chained up in such a way that they have nothing to look at but the cave’s blank wall. But a fire is burning behind them, and when other people hold objects up in front of the fire, the shadows of those objects are projected onto the wall, where the prisoners can see them. The prisoners’ contact with these shadows, and their own thoughts about the shadows, are all they know of reality. Eventually the prisoners are freed. Only then do they discover that the world is bigger, more complex, and much more nuanced than the flickering shadows they took for reality.”
― Tanya J. Peterson, Break Free: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 3 Steps: A Workbook for Overcoming Self-Doubt and Embracing Life

“The only test, Baker, is how not to erase ourselves from the map. Our history is that things don't last. Every generation creates the right monsters to destroy itself.”
― Gerard Donovan, Schopenhauer's Telescope

“Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

“Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read.”
― Raymond Carver