Robert Anton Wilson quotes - page 5

It's important to abolish the unconscious dogmatism that makes people think their way of looking at reality is the only sane way of viewing the world. My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything. (Robert Anton Wilson)
Dr Lecter, my candidate for the male archetype of 1951-2000, will never win any Nice Guy awards, I fear, but he symbolizes our age as totally as Bloom symbolized his. Hannibal's wit, erudition, insight into others, artistic sensitivity, scientific knowledge etc. make him almost a walking one man encyclopedia of Western civilization. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
What better symbol of our age than a serial killer? Hell, can you think of any recent U.S. President who doesn't belong in the Serial Killer Hall of Fame? And their motives make no more sense, and no less sense, than Dr Lecter's Darwinian one-man effort to rid the planet of those he finds outstandingly loutish and uncouth. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
I'm not a Reichian in the sense of somebody who thinks he was the greatest scientist who ever lived and discovered the basic secrets of psychology, physics and everything else, all in one lifetime. But I think he has enough sound ideas that his unpopular ideas deserve further investigation. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
I'm a libertarian because I don't trust the people as much as anarchists do. I want to see government limited as much as possible; I would like to see it reduced back to where it was in Jefferson's time, or even smaller. But I would not like to see it abolished. I think the average American, if left totally free, would act exactly like Idi Amin. I don't trust the people any more than I trust the government. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
Bruno's teachings combined the new science of his time with traditional Cabalistic mysticism. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
He {Wilhelm Reich} had a great capacity to arouse irrational hatred obviously, and that's because his ideas were radical in the most extreme sense of the word "radical." His ideas have something to offend everybody, and he ended up becoming the only heretic in American history whose books were literally burned by the government. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
Well I sometimes call myself a libertarian but that's only because most people don't know what anarchist means. Most people hear you're an anarchist and they think you're getting ready to throw a bomb at a building. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying. Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
Many tribal peoples have both all-male and all-female secret societies, which help maintain the cultural values or reality tunnel. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
Since many disapprove of this unconstitutional way of silencing heresy, Dr. Reich has remained a center of controversy. (Robert Anton Wilson)
Yates thinks Bruno may have had a role in the invention of either Rosicrucianism or Freemasonry or both. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
They do not have one meaning, as a proposition in logic should have; they have several meanings, like an algebraic function. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
I think government should be treated like religion, everyone should be able to pick the kind they like. Only it should be contractual not obligatory. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
Most animals, including most domesticated primates (humans) show a truly staggering ability to "ignore" certain kinds of information - that which does not "fit" their imprinted/conditioned reality-tunnel. We generally call this "conservatism" or "stupidity", but it appears in all parts of the political spectrum, and in learned societies as well as in the Ku Klux Klan. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
The major offense of Masonry to orthodox churches is that it, like our First Amendment, encourages equal tolerance for all religions, and this tends, somewhat, to lessen dogmatic allegiance to any one religion. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
Out of a meaningless and pointless existence, we have made meaning and purpose; but since this creative act happens only when we relax after great strain, we feel it as 'pouring into us' from elsewhere. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
I regard the two major male archetypes in 20th Century literature as Leopold Bloom and Hannibal Lecter. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
Following Korzybski, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes... View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
Reich was not only thrown in prison, but they chopped up all the scientific equipment in his laboratory with axes and burned all of his books in an incinerator. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
When mercy was created, mercy existed. (Robert Anton Wilson)
The illusion of Sin and Guilt, the madness of our species, is the act of cursing the world under the misapprehension that one is cursing only one part of it. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
Comparative religion and philosophy show that the Thinker can regard itself as mortal, as immortal, as both mortal and immortal (the reincarnation model) or even as non-existent (Buddhism). View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
Instead of governments we should have contractual associations that you can opt out of if you don't like the way the association is going. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson
Guerrilla ontology The basic technique of all my books. View quote
Robert Anton Wilson