Robert Anton Wilson

The longer one is alone, the easier it is to hear the song of the earth.

Belief is the death of intelligence.

I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread.

A true initiation never ends.

It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.

A monopoly on the means of communication may define a ruling elite more precisely than the celebrated Marxian formula of monopoly in the means of production.

Of course I'm crazy, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.

You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you.

Ego is a social fiction for which one person at a time gets all the blame.

There are gods, but there is no God; and all gods become devils eventually.

Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt... Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves.

I'm not an anarchist any longer, because I've concluded that anarchism is an impractical ideal.

Most of our ancestors were not perfect ladies and gentlemen. The majority of them weren't even mammals.

Animals outline their territories with their excretions, humans outline their territories by ink excretions on paper.

An Enlightened Master is ideal only if your goal is to become a Benighted Slave.

Beyond a certain point, the whole universe becomes a continuous process of initiation.

Everyone look around and see if you can spot the NARCS. They're the ones who look like hippies.

Certitude belongs exclusively to those who only own one encyclopedia.

Most people live in a myth and grow violently angry if anyone dares to tell them the truth about themselves.

The function of Theology? The recitation of the incomprehensible by the unspeakable to pick the pockets of the unthinking.

Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.

I have never experienced another human being. I have experienced my impressions of them.

Nobody sees the obvious, nobody observes the ordinary. There are more miracles in a square yard of earth than in all the fables of the Church.

Pregnancy is a kind of miracle. Especially so in that it proves that a man and woman can conspire to force God to create a new soul.

Humans live through their myths and only endure their realities.

I think I got off on the wrong planet. Beam me up Scotty, there's no rational life here.

The border between the Real and the Unreal is not fixed, but just marks the last place where rival gangs of shamans fought each other to a standstill.

Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil.

Only the madman is absolutely sure.

Consciousness itself is an infinite regress. This explains coincidences.

There is no complete theory of anything.

The totally convinced and the totally stupid have too much in common for the resemblance to be accidental.

We live in our fantasies and endure our realities.

Size is not a reality, but a construct of the mind; and space a construct to contain constructs.

There is one universal sex law: Sex shall not be unregulated.

The Right's view of government and the Left's view of big business are both correct.

The Grail is the womb of the beloved.

Groups are grammatical fictions; only individuals exist, and each individual is different.

The web of life is a beautiful and meaningless dance. The web of life is a process with a moving goal. The web of life is a perfectly finished work of art right where I am sitting now.

You know, I have found a new way to get high and stay spaced out for hours on end, and the government can't stop me... It's called senility.

All phenomena are real in some sense, unreal in some sense, meaningless in some sense, real and meaningless in some sense, unreal and meaningless in some sense, and real and unreal and meaningless in some sense.

Nothing of any importance can be taught. It can only be learned, and with blood and sweat.

Philadelphia merely seems dull because it's next to exciting Camden, New Jersey.

History, sociology, economics, psychology et al. confirmed Joyce's view of Everyman as victim.

It's only possible to see people when one is able to see the world as others see it.

When the rose and the cross are united the alchemical marriage is complete and the drama ends. Then we wake from history and enter eternity.

On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.

The path up is the path down. The way forward is the way back. The universe inside is outside but the universe outside is inside.

Horror is the natural reaction to the last 5,000 years of history.

The average is that which no person quite ever is.

If one can only see things according to one's own belief system, one is destined to become virtually deaf, dumb, and blind.