"You know that you are. Don’t burden yourself with names, just be. Any name or shape you give yourself obscures your real nature."
"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you."
- Christopher Hitchens, Letters to A Young Contrarian
"You’re going to discover that conversations are best at 4am. The heavier the eyelids, the sincerer the words. Those are the talks you’ll remember. It’s ok not to know the answer and silence is not awkward. It’s shared, so share it more often than not."
"I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you."
"If I love you, what business is it of yours?"
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
"I really didn’t like that. Unfortunately, he was drifting away from us at that point, so none of us actually knew. He never told us; we heard rumours and we were very sad. But he’d embarked on a new course, which really involved anything and everything. Because John was that kind of guy he wanted to live life to the full as he saw it. John’d always wanted to jump off the cliff. He once said that to me, ‘Have you ever thought of jumping?’ I said, ‘Fuck off. You jump and tell me how it is.’ That’s basically the difference in our personalities."
"People who enjoy waving flags don’t deserve to have one."
vintageanchor:
“A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.”
–Mark Twain
(via adsertoris)
"Picture some future time when thinking beings may occupy simulated software realms within some vast cybernetic space—either in “holodeck” style physical manifestations or in purely cybernetic downloads. Realms that emulate the palpable “pinch-me test” of reality, with fine attention to every detail. We don’t yet know how far simulation can be extended, or whether there are inherent limits. Some very smart people believe there aren’t any, in which case there’s no guarantee that you, reading this paragraph right now, aren’t already living in such a simulation."