"People do not go to hell after death. The designers and builders of hell are human beings. The designs and buildings are almost completed. It is becoming difficult to add more hell."
- Tamo-san
"I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room."
- Blaise Pascal
"The increasing desolation of nature, the exhaustion of resources, the uneasiness and disintegration of the human spirit, all have been brought about by humanity's trying to accomplish something."
- Masanobu Fukuoka
"Somebody told me it was frightening how much topsoil we are losing each year, but I told that story around the campfire and nobody got scared."
- Jack Handey
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
"The seduction of evil is precisely in that it involves us in trying to eliminate it. When your consciousness is open, any action you take in reference to evil has no more significance than digging a ditch to channel floodwaters away from a house."
- Thaddeus Golas
"Giving others the freedom to be stupid is one of the most important and hardest steps to take in spiritual progress. Conveniently the opportunity to take that step is all around us every day."
- Thaddeus Golas
"If the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise."
- William Blake
"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
"When we come upon assurances that a mystery has been solved, we go on investigating."
- Charles Fort
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, does not go away."
- Philip K. Dick
"It's easy to stay grounded. The ground is very close. And we walk on it every day."
- Keanu Reeves
"Appearance versus reality? Appearance is reality, God damn it!"
- Edward Abbey
"There has got to be a God; the world could not have become so fucked up by chance alone."
- Edward Abbey
"The cure for anything is salt water -- sweat, tears, or the sea."
- Isak Dinesen
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
- (variously attributed)
"No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it."
- Richard Feynman
"Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are."
- Ortega y Gasset
"Do not even wait."
- Franz Kafka, on how to meditate
"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
- Leonard Cohen
"The bigger you build the bonfire, the more darkness is revealed."
- Terence McKenna
"Use the bright light but return to the dim light."
- Tao Te Ching, chapter 52.3, Ellen Chen translation
"The unspeakable is the true domain of being. And then within that, there is a very small subset of those things which can actually be captured in language. Mostly it's all mystery."
- Terence McKenna
"The nicest thing about anything is not knowing what it is."
- George Carlin
"The other day I... uh, no, that wasn't me."
- Steven Wright
"You know, I'm sick of following my dreams, man. I'm just going to ask where they're going and hook up with 'em later."
- Mitch Hedberg
"He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it."
- Douglas Adams
"Look at the sunset from the sun's point of view."
- Steven Wright
"Being there I came to understand the Heraclitus fragment: 'The Aeon is a child at play with colored balls'. It is this. As well I understand, 'Still the first day, All Fool's Day, here at the center.'"
- anonymous DMT trip report, last bit from Edward Abbey