Pensées

Dreams are the rebellion of sleep, and stars are swords raised against a dethroned sun.

Dreaming will never get you where you want to go, -- unless your destination is a reverie; in which case, dreaming is a way of going, and maybe the only practical route there is.


Lightning can turn evening into day,
Yet, only for an instant;
Such is everyone who speaks the truth,
While living in the darkness of a lie.

Few people can perform complex mathematical equations in their heads, and fewer still would try. Yet, everyone imagines he can philosophize extemporaneously, without recourse to the page.

Philosophy is often slandered as an idle pursuit, but nothing could be further from the truth. Besides the fact that no endeavor is more critical to the survival and enlightenment of our species than patient, profound reflection, thinking is a veritable labor in its own right. The philosopher is not so far removed from the brick-layer as we might suppose. When ponderous matters are at stake, words have considerable substance and weight, and the structures erected must be of the finest workmanship, or long they will not stand. 

To withhold can also be a form of generosity.

While man is surely mortal, mankind is something more.

The rich man, no less than the poor, dreams of what he does not have, and is disillusioned by what he has.

One day, we will think of sending children to school the way we now think of sending them to workhouses. 

White light may be broken into many colors, and God into many gods, but white itself is not a color, and God is not a god. Love may be enacted in many ways, but in it's purest state, it has no form. So, God is worshiped differently in different lands, according to the "metaphysical terrain" of the place, and if the dimensions of the Godhead must be compromised to assume one form or another, it is a holy sacrifice, that God may become apparent in the world. 

There are matters, and religion is certainly one of them, so obscure as to attract mostly fools and wise men; the former by the ease with which they misinterpret what is said, and the latter by the sagacity with which they find sense in it. Average intellects, on the other hand, heap equal scorn on things too great and too small for their understanding. They deride and hasten to pass by those subjects which fools have deformed, yet, give their credence to these same interpretations of fools, refusing to countenance them even when sages have reformed them. Rather than question the pronouncements of the foolish, and suppose that such things must appear differently in the eyes of a more contemplative soul, instead, they merely wonder how wise men can be taken in, and commend themselves for being wise, at least, in this. In fact, they are themselves taken in. Though they rightly call the interpretations of fools absurd, they nonetheless assume the correctness of the interpretations, and promptly conclude that the matter is itself absurd. They will not hear it, when a wise man retells the tale a fool has corrupted, but cry out, "We have heard all this from the mouths of fools, and know well what we should make of it." Thus, matters of the highest merit are confounded with the most abject.

That the writings of the mystics sometimes lack lucidity ought to be taken as a matter of course, and not as a serious criticism. It is the least, and therefor the most forgivable, of their faults, -- if indeed it is a fault; for the matters in which they deal are not simple by any means, but subtle beyond the power of language to express. In attempting to indicate the reality of such things as mystery and paradox, it may not only be unavoidable, but even beneficial to retain some elusive sense within the text. The appeal of mysticism is not specifically to the intellect, but to the whole of a man's being, -- so, the objects considered will not be served by the mind which claps down upon them in a spirit of finality, but by the soul which, upon encountering them, unfolds and opens itself out onto infinite vistas of providence and possibility. Truth is not held in the mind, but moves like breath upon the lungs, and alone embraces the world.

Saying a person thinks too much is like saying they climb too much. Trees or mountains. Whatever they like to climb. However high they like to go. The fact that climbing is dangerous, that it may precipitate a fall, is reason enough for many to abandon and advise against it. But then some folks are incurable climbers. They belong in the trees, or in the mountains. Maybe they belong TO them, in some way. Maybe they speak for them.


We live in a culture now where mediocrity passes for modesty, and flippancy for strength. If you speak with any gravity of purpose or breadth of vision, if you give expression to any lofty sentiment or noble aspiration, they'll call you pretentious. If you speak with sincerity, they'll say you just don't get the joke; you're too sensitive. Don't believe it. Don't buy into any of it. It's better to care about something important, and to be sincere; to care about anything at all. I'm tired of the jokes that make light of everything good and real and true; the madness that laughs to scorn everything worthy of respect. Tell me it's not insanity, when the same people who think it's judgmental to challenge empty chatter, are the first to criticize more meaningful words for not being deeds. When you say nothing, they act as though nothing is lacking, and ask nothing of you, but when say something, they scoff and demand action. Do they hear themselves, at all?