"That is all very senseless, but this senselessness has a pretty mouth, and it smiles."

--

Source : Robert Walser (2014). “Jakob von Gunten”, p.12, New York Review of Books

Robert Walser

“...I'm a modern mountebank - I believe in Physiognomy - after all, we are in control of our face - it's the map of where we've been...”
“For me philosophy begins with these experiences of disappointment: a disappointment at the level of what I would think of as "meaning," namely that, given that there is no God, what is the meaning of life? And, given that we live in an unjust world, how are we to bring about justice?”

Source : Interview with Jill Stauffer, believermag.com. August 2003.
“A mind which has once imbibed a taste for scientific enquiry, and has learnt the habit of applying its principles readily to the cases which occur, has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations.”

Source : "A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy". Book by John Herschel, 1830.
“I use to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Tom Cruise too.”

Source : Barbara Bretton (2008). “Casting Spells”, p.297, Penguin
“Our training pushes us to develop a new set of instincts: instead of reacting to danger with a fight-or-flight adrenaline rush, we're trained to respond unemotionally by immediately prioritizing threats and methodically seeking to defuse them. We go from wanting to bolt for the exit to wanting to engage and understand what's going wrong, then fix it.”
“In thinking of light, if we can think about what it can do, and what it is, by thinking about itself, not about what we wanted it to do for other things, because again we've used light as people might be used, in the sense that we use it to light paintings. We use it to light so that we can read. We don't really pay much attention to the light itself. And so turning that and letting light and sound speak for itself is that you figure out these different relationships and rules.”
“Store spices in a cool, dark place, not above your stove. Humidity, light and heat will cause herbs and spices to lose their flavor.”
“If you take guns away from legal gun owners then the only people who would have guns would be the bad guys. Even a pacifist would get violent if someone were trying to kill him or her. You would fight for your life, whatever your beliefs. You'd use a rock or tear one of these chairs out of the floor. Hey, maybe I've been watching too many Bruce Willis movies!”

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