Rick Wilson

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Tree of Aeons 7
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Crisis of Conscie...
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The Gulag Archipe...
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Mar 23, 2026 06:13PM

 
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Joseph Campbell
“The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.”
Joseph Campbell, Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research

Carl Sagan
“For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled. Even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven’t forgotten. The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood. We invest far-off places with a certain romance. This appeal, I suspect, has been meticulously crafted by natural selection as an essential element in our survival. Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game—none of them lasts forever. It is beyond our powers to predict the future. Catastrophic events have a way of sneaking up on us, of catching us unaware. Your own life, or your band’s, or even your species’ might be owed to a restless few—drawn, by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands and new worlds.

Herman Melville, in Moby Dick, spoke for wanderers in all epochs and meridians: “I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas…”

Maybe it’s a little early. Maybe the time is not quite yet. But those other worlds— promising untold opportunities—beckon.

Silently, they orbit the Sun, waiting.”
Carl Sagan

Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not “studying a profession,” for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays

Paulo Coelho
“If you are never alone you cannot know yourself. And if you do not know yourself, you will begin to fear the void.”
Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Reading ought to mean understanding; writing ought to mean knowing something; believing ought to mean comprehending; when you desire a thing, you will have to take it; when you demand it, you will not get it; and when you are experienced, you ought to be useful to others.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections

8115 The History Book Club — 26183 members — last activity May 26, 2026 12:19PM
"Interested in history - then you have found the right group". The History Book Club is the largest history and nonfiction group on Goodread ...more
25x33 Tech-history and future — 6 members — last activity Jan 21, 2019 07:11PM
Books about tech and how we got here combined with future looking books about where we might be going
851876 ATXSciRead--Austin's Science + Nature Book Club — 8 members — last activity Jan 16, 2019 05:42PM
The Austin Texas Science Writers, known as ATXSciWri, invites lovers of science and nature writing to join the newest BookPeople book club, ATXSciRead ...more
25x33 Quake books I wish someone had recommend to me — 2 members — last activity Apr 29, 2019 09:33PM
A "Quake book" is something I stole from Tyler Cowen. Basically, it's any book that after reading your life can no longer be the same. Something funda ...more
151274 Effective Altruists — 656 members — last activity Apr 22, 2026 02:40PM
Recommend books, see what other people are reading, start a discussion, what have you. N.B. This group is not actively moderated and doesn't have any ...more
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