All Quotes

"Without consciousness there would, practically speaking, be no world, for the world exists as such only in so far as it is consciously reflected and considered by a psyche. Consciousness is a precondition of being."

"You can take away a man's gods, but only to give him others in return."

"The seat of faith, however, is not consciousness but spontaneous religious experience, which brings the individual's faith into immediate relation with God. Here we must ask: Have I any religious experience and immediate relation to God, and hence that certainty which will keep me, as an individual, from dissolving in the crowd?"

"Reason alone does not suffice."

"We are living in what the Greeks called the right time for a "metamorphosis of the gods," i.e. of the fundamental principles and symbols. This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious man within us who is changing. Coming generations will have to take account of this momentous transformation if humanity is not to destroy itself through the might of its own technology and science."

"Die Liebe herrscht nicht, aber sie bildet; und das ist mehr!"

"We Shall Naturally look round in vain the macrophysical world for acausal events, for the simple reason that we cannot imagine events that are connected non-causally and are capable of a non-causal explanation. But that does not mean that such events do not exist... The so-called "scientific view of the world" based on this can hardly be anything more than a psychologically biased partial view which misses out all those by no means unimportant aspects that cannot be grasped statistically."

"Primitive superstition lies just below the surface of even the most tough-minded individuals, and it is precisely those who most fight against it who are the first to succumb to its suggestive effects."

"Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history."

"This grasping of the whole is obviously the aim of science as well, but it is a goal that necessarily lies very far off because science, whenever possible, proceeds experimentally and in all cases statistically. Experiment, however, consists in asking a definite question which excludes as far as possible anything disturbing and irrelevant. It makes conditions, imposes them on Nature, and in this way forces her to give an answer to a question devised by man. She is prevented from answering out of the fullness of her possibilities since these possibilities are restricted as far as practible. For this purpose there is created in the laboratory a situation which is artificially restricted to the question which compels Nature to give an unequivocal answer. The workings of Nature in her unrestricted wholeness are completely excluded. If we want to know what these workings are, we need a method of inquiry which imposes the fewest possible conditions, or if possible no conditions at all, and then leave Nature to answer out of her fullness."

"It is sometimes difficult to avoid the impression that there is a sort of foreknowledge of the coming series of events."

"My example concerns a young woman patient who, in spite of efforts made on both sides, proved to be psychologically inaccessible. The difficulty lay in the fact that she always knew better about everything. Her excellent education had provided her with a weapon ideally suited to this purpose, namely a highly polished Cartesian rationalism with an impeccably "geometrical" idea of reality. After several fruitless attempts to sweeten her rationalism with a somewhat more human understanding, I had to confine myself to the hope that something unexpected and irrational would turn up, something that burst the intellectual retort into which she had sealed herself. Well, I was sitting opposite of her one day, with my back to the window, listening to her flow of rhetoric. She had an impressive dream the night before, in which someone had given her a golden scarab—a costly piece of jewellery. While she was still telling me this dream, I heard something behind me gently tapping on the window. I turned round and saw that it was a fairly large flying insect that was knocking against the window from outside in the obvious effort to get into the dark room. This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window and immediately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. It was a scarabaeid beetle, or common rose-chafer, whose gold-green color most nearly resembles that of a golden scarab. I handed the beetle to my patient with the words "Here is your scarab." This broke the ice of her intellectual resistance. The treatment could now be continued with satisfactory results."

"Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above ground lasts only a single summer. What we see is the blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains."

"I know every numbskull will babble on about "black man," "maneater," "chance," and "retrospective interpretation," in order to banish something terribly inconvenient that might sully the familiar picture of childhood innocence. Ah, these good, efficient, healthy-minded people, they always remind me of those optimistic tadpoles who bask in a puddle in the sun, in the shallowest of waters, crowding together and amiably wriggling their tails, totally unaware that the next morning the puddle will have dried up and left them stranded."

"Sometimes I had an overwhelming urge to speak, not about that, but only to hint that there were some curious things about me which no one knew of. I wanted to find out whether other people had undergone similar experiences. I never succeeded in discovering so much as a trace of them in others. As a result, I had the feeling that I was either outlawed or elect, accursed or blessed."

"My interests drew me in different directions. On the one hand I was powerfully attracted by science, with its truths based on facts; on the other hand I was fascinated by everything to do with comparative religion. [...] In science I missed the factor of meaning; and in religion, that of empiricism."

"It is only natural that I should constantly have revolved in my mind the question of the relationship of the symbolism of the unconscious to Christianity as well as to other religions. Not only do I leave the door open for the Christian message, but I consider it of central importance for Western man. It needs, however, to be seen in a new light, in accordance with the changes wrought by the contemporary spirit."

"Private courier companies are fine to handle the lucrative parts of the [postal] business. But they have little interest in servicing remote communities, so these areas get poor or non-existent service. Similarly, leaving health care and education to the private marketplace will result in fine services for the affluent but leave many others without access to decent services (or in some cases any services at all). While this kind of deficiency is bad enough when it comes to postal delivery, it becomes downright serious in areas like health care and education."

"Utterly left out of Tax Freedom Day [a holiday marking how many days an average person must work before his or her annual taxes are paid off] is any notion that taxes are what we pay to buy services that we all need and use, and that would be much more expensive or even impossible to purchase privately - fire and police protection, highways, roads, canals, coast guard services, snow removal, water purification, schools, hospitals, libraries, etc. Tax Freedom Day could undoubtably be moved up to early January if we were prepared to walk out of our dwellings that morning onto a dirt path and take our chances on what might befall us."

"Despite loud complaints from members of the financial elite about high tax levels, it's interesting to note that they still manage to live in the finest houses, eat at the best restaurants, shop at the most expensive stores. If this is coercion, we should all experience it."

"Those tempted to slough off the helpful role of the state [in the earning of private property] should... "compare the fortune accumulated by Cornelius Vanderbilt in America with what he might have accumulated had he been adopted when an infant by a family of Hottentots.""

"[[George W. Bush|[George W.] Bush]] explained that he wasn't willing to take the steps outlined in the Kyoto accords - steps that both the scientific world and the international political community had agreed, with a stunning degree of unanimity, were necessary for the future viability of the earth - because he wasn't willing to jeopardize the rate of growth of the American economy. In what sense is this a rational position?"

"All our confidence in our ability to act collectively is being undermined, with the subtext message Whatever it is, the private sector can do it better. Never mind that there's no evidence for this. Never mind, for instance, that the private US health-care system is 40 percent more expensive per capita than the Canadian public system, even though the Canadian system provides full coverage for all Canadians and the American system leaves some forty-three million without any coverage at all. This isn't because Canadians are smarter than Americans - it's because we have a public system and they don't."

""Short-term inequality remains a problem," writes [right-wing scholar Dinesh] D'Souza... "but is it a problem we can live with?" …After searching his soul for a few seconds, he apparently concludes that we can live with it. Of course, inequality always feels like less of a problem to those who don't live in corrugated shacks, which is why sales of D'Souza's book have probably been brisker in Manhattan than in, say, Addis Ababa or Khartoum."

"Not only has capitalism failed to bring us to the brink of a scarcity-free world, but in a sense, you could say that capitalism invented scarcity - at least as a deliberate method of economic organization.... The flipside of this bounty, this endless feast, is scarcity."

"Under the market system, there is demand for a product if a lot of people want it - but that demand counts for nothing if those people have no money. If they lack money, their demand essentially doesn't exist...This explains why the drug industry is not investing money to develop a cure for a disease known as sleeping sickness, which leaves its victims in a coma. The disease...killed 66,000 people last year and threatens to infect 60 million more - but the only people who are afflicted by it are poverty-stricken Africans with no clout in the marketplace. Interestingly, there is a drug called eflornithine that is effective in lifting victims out of their comas. But drug companies stopped producing eflornithine in 1995 because it was no longer profitable to continue. The drug was still desperately needed, but only by people without money. So, following modern market practices, these people were simply left in a coma."

"[A]s things now stand, the case that capitalism will make the world - not just the West - materially better off has simply not been convincingly demonstrated. Indeed, with almost 70 per cent of the world's people experiencing a decline in their real incomes in recent years, the opposite appears to be true. The wanton celebration of market capitalism while so many people throughout the world are lacking basic food and shelter seems, if not downright vulgar, at least a little insensitive."

"Canada got one break in the Walkerton tragedy: the deadly contamination of the Ontario town's water supply, which killed seven people in the summer of 2000, came from cow manure. If the contamination had come instead from, say, a toxic chemical produced by a foreign company, that would have been worse. Then the company might well have sued Canada for hundreds of millions of dollars."

"One of the striking aspects of the new trade deals is that while they have invested corporations with a new set of rights, they have attached no responsibilities to those rights. Notice how the lawsuits all go in one direction - corporations sue governments for infringing their corporate profit-making rights. A government can't sue a corporation for infringing the rights of its citizens by, say, polluting local drinking water."

"Like chewing gum or hair gel, water [according to the World Bank and IMF] is to be sold by the private sector at market rates. The needs of the people are all that's left out of this equation.... [A] World Bank document cites the "willingness to pay" on the part of the people in Ghana as evidence of their recognition of the "health benefits" of drinkable water. It's amazing, isn't it, how people are "willing" to pay huge amounts for things that they need in order to survive!"

"It is almost enough to make one's jaw drop to think that officials at the World Bank and the IMF would suggest that they have poverty alleviation in mind when they force governments to withdraw subsidies that enable poor people to get clean water to drink. If this is a policy aimed at helping the world's poor, it's interesting to imagine what a policy aimed at hurting the world's poor would look like."

"[W]e are assured not just that things will work out over time, but that scarcity is "vanishing before our eyes." Why, look - even as we watch - those 2.8 billion people are going to find food on their plates. Look again in a few hours and their shacks will have toilets - and then air conditioning. In a few days, they'll likely have DVD systems and be doing their banking by cellphone."

"[The] contention that today's rich person is simply the winner of a "race that is open for anyone to enter" takes no account of inheritance or how we are equipped as we enter that race. It doesn't acknowledge that some approach the starting line in streamlined Lycra suits and track shoes, with full knowledge of the rules, a determined attitude and belief in their own abilities, not to mention a close friendship with those setting the rules and choosing the winner. Others, hungry from not having had a meal that day, barely make it to the starting line, don't really understand the purpose of the race or its rules, lack self-confidence and are full of hostility, and are convinced that those officials at the side of the track are actually cops waiting to bust them."

"[W]e have things fundamentally backwards today: we let the needs of the economy dictate the nature of our society, while we should let the needs of our society determine the nature of our economy."

"Thomas Friedman dismissed the protesters in Quebec City as members of the "Coalition to Keep Poor People Poor." …The Coalition to Keep Poor People Poor might as well disband; its apparent goal is being accomplished in spades by pro-market forces. If the prospects of the world's poor improving their lot is one that supposedly upsets anti-capitalist protestors, they can confidently put their gas masks and get back to the shopping mall - global capitalism can be trusted to keep the poor in check without any help."

"Some highly religious people are outraged that atheists would publicly declare their lack of faith. Accordingly many of the people who belong to atheist associations hide their beliefs from most others, knowing from experience it could affect their employment, membership in other clubs, and social connections. It reminds me of the reaction of many high RWAs when homosexuals began to come out: “Don’t these people know they’re supposed to be ashamed of what they are?” That in turn reminded me of the reaction of many White supremists to the civil rights movement: “Don’t these n------ know they’re inferior and should never be treated as our equals?” Fortunately, eventually, minorities can overcome these reactions."

"Visible minorities. Along this same line, high RWAs misperceive how diverse America is. It’s quite natural to think, when you are in the white, Christian, heterosexual, solvent majority that this is a huge majority. Minorities should speak out for their rights. If they don’t, they are (among other things) helping a lot of the majority remain steeped in ignorance. People can learn, but they won’t have a chance if the minorities remain invisible. I know, I know, the high RWAs will howl whatever chorus their leaders dictate when minorities become “uppity”. But recall the evidence that nothing improves authoritarians’ attitudes toward homosexuals as much as getting to know a homosexual--or learning that they’ve known one for years."

"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there."

"On July 20, 2005, Canada legalized same-sex marriage. Homosexuals had already been getting legally married in most of the provinces for several years, so the federal law just established the right from sea to shining sea. By October 2006, about 12,500 same-sexed couples had gotten married. Getting the right acknowledged had been a struggle. Opponents attacked gay marriage primarily on two fronts: it would violate certain Biblical texts, and it would destroy the family. The first point is beyond dispute but unconvincing, I think, because everyone chooses which Biblical texts he'll follow and which he'll ignore. Numbers 15:32-36 says people who pick up sticks on the Sabbath should be executed, by stoning no less. But if you start chucking rocks at your neighbor next Sabbath as he mows his lawn, you'll probably get into a lot of trouble. As for destroying the family, what's the evidence? And where's the outcry about divorce, a clear and present family wrecker, which Jesus most definitely condemned, which nevertheless happens quite commonly among religious opponents of same-sex marriage? Does same-sex marriage threaten the family, much less destroy it? Most of the homosexual couples in Canada who have wanted to get married have tied the knot in the past few years. And you know what? The traditional family is still sailing along (or floundering) exactly as before. Divorce courts have not been swamped by homosexuals demanding to be set free from unhappy heterosexual unions so they can marry their true, same-sexed love. The few married homosexual couples who have adopted children have not been found to be raising a generation of "gays just like Mom and Mom." Heterosexual lovers still buy virtually all of the marriage certificates at the courthouse, and heterosexual ex-lovers still fill the dockets down the hall in the divorce court. In short, the biggest threat to traditional marriage and the mom & dad family has not been posed by homosexual marriage but, overwhelmingly, by unhappy heterosexuals. So what's all the fuss about? How big a problem can this possibly be?"

"Increasingly, people say "Who cares?" Yes, gays can still run into a brick wall, even in California, when it comes to getting married. But I've been studying attitudes toward homosexuals since 1984, and my investigations show the same thing that national polls do: attitudes toward homosexuality have become markedly less negative in a short time. For example, when I began my studies most students, and their parents, agreed with the statement, "I won't associate with known homosexuals if I can help it." Now, most students and parents say they don't at all mind associating with homosexuals. Brick walls can crumble."

"I'm not saying that people shouldn't be able to get a divorce. I'm saying that there's a teensy-weensy bit of hypocrisy in a group opposing gay marriage on religious and "save the family" grounds when one-fifth to one-third of its members have themselves been divorced."

"You can see the double standard regarding homosexuality very vividly in most heterosexual "skin magazines," which will often have two, three, or more fetching young ladies hugging or kissing together in the altogether. But there are no similar layouts featuring (Lord help us!) guys in men's magazines. (At least that was true the last time I looked at them- strictly in the interest of science, you understand- some years ago.) Maybe men are so tolerant of lesbian activity partly because they'd like to join in, too."

"Ye lads of grace and sprung from worthy stock Grudge not to brave men converse with your beauty In cities of Chalcis, Love, looser of limbs Thrives side by side with courage."

"You know how I know you're gay? 'cause you're gay and you can tell who other gay people are."

"You know how I know you're gay? You like Coldplay."

"If it be sin to love a lovely lad"

"Pre-World War II prejudices against homosexuals are hard to summarize, because scholars disagree as to when the category of "homosexual" even became recognizable in Europe. It seems evident that in antiquity certain forms of intimacy between people of the same sex did not carry a stigma or preclude sexual relations with members of the opposite se. By the modern era, however, much of this flexibility was gone, although the supposedly prudish society of Victorian England showed considerable tolerance for at least some kinds of same-sex intimacies. For example, many people considered sexual experimentation among boys in boarding schools to be a normal part of development; loving relationships between women who often became lifelong companions were not uncommon either. Nevertheless, by the late nineteenth century many parts of Europe had introduced laws against homosexuality. The German criminal code of 1871 explicitly forbade sexual relations between men. The state prosecuted some cases, and public interest in such "scandals" ran high. For example, it was an enormous sensation when prince Eulenberg, a member of the inner circle of the German Kaiser Wilhelm II (1888-1918), was charged with homosexual activities and forced from public life. Somewhat paradoxically, an increased openness around the subject of human sexuality in the decades after World War I served to make homosexual men and women more visible in Europe and to increase the panic some heterosexuals felt about them."

"Political changes in Germany after World War I made it possible for the first time for Berlin to develop a gay scene that included clubs, restaurants, and bathhouses frequented by homosexual men. Lesbians, it seems, tended to attract less public attention, although there were also some clubs popular with homosexual women. Laws against sex between men were still on the books in Germany's first democracy, the Weimar Republic, but enforcement was slacker than it had been before World War I, especially in major cities. Many heterosexual Germans, however, disapproved of what they considered their overly permissive society. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935), a sex reformer and homosexual rights leader in Berlin, made an international reputation for his research in sexology, the new field of studies of sex and sexuality. Hirschfeld regarded homosexuality as the "third sex," a natural and legitimate variant between masculine and feminine. Homosexuals, he pointed out, looked and behaved normally and should be treated accordingly. For many people the work of researchers and activists such as Hirschfeld offered new possibilities for human freedom. For others it seemed to represent the decadence of a society that had abandoned its traditional values. Hitler's Nazis capitalized on such fears as well; they forced Hirschfeld out of Germany, and his research institute was one of the first casualties of the new regime."

"There can be little doubt that, as far as they thought of the matter at all, Marx and Engels were personally homophobic, as shown by an acerbic 1869 exchange of letters on Jean-Baptiste von Schweitzer, a German socialist rival. Schweitzer had been arrested in a park on a morals charge and not only did Marx and Engels refuse to join a committee defending him, they resorted to the cheapest form of bathroom humor in their private comments about the affair."

"Pleasure and love are the pinions of great deeds."