Either - Quotes
Sometimes I think we`re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we`re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.
Painting is the only art that can be practised without either talent or hard work.
Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally convenient strategies. With either we dispense with the need for reflection.
If you want to stay in for the long haul, and lead a life that is free from illusions either propagated by you or embraced by you, then I suggest you learn to recognize and avoid the symptoms of the zealot and the person who knows he is right.
All human beings search for either reasons to be good, or excuses to be bad.
We are not special.
We are not crap or trash, either.
We just are.
We just are, and what happens just happens.
- A question, before you go. What is the truth?
- We place faith in ourselves. We see the world the way it really is and hope that one day all mankind might see the same.
- What is the world, then?
- An illusion. One of which can either submit to - like most do - or transcend.
- What is it to transcend?
- To recognize nothing is true and everything is permitted. That laws arise not from divinity, but reason. I understand now that our creed does not commend us to be free - it commends us to be wise.
All arguments must obviously either be circular or reduce to an infinite regression if one never stops asking why.
I believe in no God, no invisible man in the sky. But there is something more powerful than each of us, a combination of our efforts, a Great Chain of industry that unites us. But it is only when we struggle in our own interest that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful and too mysterious for any government to guide. Any man who tells you different either has his hand in your pocket, or a pistol to your neck.
If motherhood has taught me anything, it is that I cannot change my children, I can only change myself. Try as I might, I can’t shape either one of them to my desires or designs, but I can choose, moment by moment and day by day, my own reaction to who they are. So perhaps my real job now, and in the year ahead, isn’t to direct my sons’ lives, but to work on becoming more thoughtful and deliberate about my own.
Two things may happen when we meet someone: either we become friends or we try to convince that person to accept our beliefs. The same thing happens when a hot coal meets another piece of coal: it either shares its fire with it or is overwhelmed by the other`s size and is extinguished.
There are two ways to handle a woman, and nobody knows either of them.
I don`t live in either my past or my future. I`m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you`ll be a happy man. [...] Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we`re living now.