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9378604
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The outsider is not sure who he is. He has found an "I", but it is not his true "I".' His main business is to find his way back to himself." --
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lostness
the-outsider
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Colin Wilson |
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4b0abfd
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Ask the Outsider what he ultimately wants,and he will admit he doesn't know.Why? Because he wants it instinctively,and it is not always possible to tell what your instincts are driving towards.
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Colin Wilson |
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8cbf470
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Religion, mysticism and magic all spring from the same basic 'feeling' about the universe: a sudden feeling of meaning, which human beings sometimes 'pick up' accidentally, as your radio might pick up some unknown station. Poets feel that we are cut off from meaning by a thick, lead wall, and that sometimes for no reason we can understand the wall seems to vanish and we are suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of the infinite interestingness o..
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magic
meaning
religion
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Colin Wilson |
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b40b6d9
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The worst crimes are not committed by evil degenerates, but by decent and intelligent people taking 'pragmatic' decisions.
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Colin Wilson |
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2ee10a5
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It is far easier to write an angry letter than to go and say angry things to another person - because as soon as we look in one another's faces we can see the other point of view.
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Colin Wilson |
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95399aa
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These men are in prison: that is the Outsider's verdict. They are quite contented in prison--caged animals who have never known freedom; but it is prison all the same. And the Outsider? He is in prison too: nearly every Outsider in this book has told us so in a different language; but he knows it. His desire is to escape. But a prison-break is not an easy matter; you must know all about your prison, otherwise you might spend years in tunnel..
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prison
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Colin Wilson |
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0759f01
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n lrwy@ 'wlan wqbl kl shy' lys lGrD mnh tqdym lmt`@ llqry' fHsb, bl nh wsyl@ ts`d lktb `l~ hDm tjrbth.
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Colin Wilson |
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e029e52
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Man is not a 'fixed and limited animal whose nature is absolutely constant'. He changed drastically when he developed 'divided consciousness' to cope with complexities of civilisation, and has been changing steadily ever since. His greatest problem, the problem that has caused most of his agonies and miseries, has been his attempt to compensate for the narrowing of cinsciousness and the entrapment in the left-brain ego. His favorite method ..
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Colin Wilson |
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b9b35ef
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It is important to grasp that boredom is one of the most common - and undesirable - consequences of 'unicameralism'. Boredom is a feeling of being 'dead inside'; that is to say, loss of contact with our instincts and feelings.
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Colin Wilson |
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5814fe6
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lfn mra@ yr~ fyh lmr wjhh hw.
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Colin Wilson |
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98f76f9
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Some are perfectly satisfied with what they have; they eat, drink, impregnate their wives, and take life as it comes. Others can never forget that they are being cheated; that life tempts them to struggle by offering them the essence of sex, of beauty, of success; and that she always seems to pay in counterfeit money.
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Colin Wilson |
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5a54106
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Man is brilliant at solving problems; but solving them only makes him the victim of his own childishness and laziness. It is this recognition that has made almost every major philosopher in history a pessimist.
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Colin Wilson |
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59be7a4
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The Outsider is always unhappy, but he is the agent that ensures happiness for millions of 'Insiders'.
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Colin Wilson |
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2d21841
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lHy @ mnf~ bHd dhth. l`wd@ l~ lbyt lys hw Tryq lrj`@.
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Colin Wilson |
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0ae7433
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Faculty X is simply that latent power in human beings possess to reach beyond the present. After all, we know perfectly well that the past is as real as the present, and that New York and Singapore and Lhasa and Stepney Green are all as real as the place I happen to be in at the moment. Yet my senses do not agree. They assure me that this place, here and now, is far more real than any other place or any other time. Only in certain moments o..
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present
human-being
reality
past
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Colin Wilson |
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d297973
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Our language has become a tired and inefficient thing in the hands of journalists and writers who have nothing to say.
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the-outsider
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Colin Wilson |
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135fb42
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n l'frd ldhyn ymlkwn lshj`@ ltHqyq dhwthm l ymwtwn bsbb lsrTn. bynm njd lrjl ldhyn ldyhm mthl hdhh lmknyt, Gyr 'nhm yftqrwn l~ lt`byr `nh yshklwn nsb@ kbyr@ mn mrD~ lsrTn. Hyth 'n `dm thqthm blHy@ ysmm 'rwHhm
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Colin Wilson |
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e016ade
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No matter how honest scientists think they are, they are still influenced by various unconscious assumptions that prevent them from attaining true objectivity. Expressed in a sentence, Fort's principle goes something like this: People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.
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Colin Wilson |
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fd1cd15
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Simple perception then is a fallacy. Besides the conscious prejudices that we are aware of imposing on the world, there are a thousand subconscious prejudices that we assume to be actuality.
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Colin Wilson |
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b98c5bc
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Human intelligence is a function of man's evolutionary urge; the scientist and the philosopher hunger for truth because they are tired of being merely human.
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Colin Wilson |
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ab515d4
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There is in Shaw, as in Gurdjieff and Nietzsche, a recognition of the immense effort of Will that is necessary to express even a little freedom, that places them beside Pascal and St. Augustine as religious thinkers. Their view is saved from pessimism only by its mystical recognition of the possibilities of pure Will, freed from the entanglements of automatism
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Colin Wilson |
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aebebd3
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One cannot ignore half of life for the purposes of science, and then claim that the results of science give a full and adequate picture of the meaning of life. All discussions of 'life' which begin with a description of man's place on a speck of matter in space, in an endless evolutionary scale, are bound to be half-measures, because they leave out most of the experiences which are important to use as human beings.
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Colin Wilson |
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d48c6e8
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lm`rf@ tftH qw~ jdyd@ fy lnfs
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Colin Wilson |
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19cb550
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One of man's deepest habits is keeping alert for dangers and difficulties, refusing to allow himself to explore his own mind because he daren't take his eyes off the world around him.
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Colin Wilson |
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4a95803
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Everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of feeling more or less alive on different days. Everyone knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth, but which he might display if these were greater. Most of us feel as if a sort of cloud weighed upon us, keeping us below our highest notch of clearness in discernment, sureness in reasoning, or firmness in deciding. Compared w..
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intensity-consciousness
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Colin Wilson |
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e510b36
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What, in fact, do we know about the peak experience? Well, to begin with, we know one thing that puts us several steps ahead of the most penetrating thinkers of the 19th century: that P.E'.s are not a matter of pure good luck or grace. They don't come and go as they please, leaving 'this dim, vast vale of tears vacant and desolate'. Like rainbows, peak experiences are governed by definite laws. They are 'intentional'. And that statement sud..
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peak-experience
maslow
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Colin Wilson |
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4561178
|
n lmftryn `l~ lHy@ hm ldhyn y`yshwn Glb Hy@ Twyl@ w yn`@. w mn lmhm 'n nqrn `l~ sbyl lmthl byn qdr shwbnhwr lmftry `l~ lHy@ w nytshh lshhd `lyh, 'w byn dy sd lmnHT jnsy w lwrns lSwfy fy ljns
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Colin Wilson |
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b8ea9d6
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The nineteenth century was the Age of Romanticism; for the first time in history, man stopped thinking of himself as an animal or a slave, and saw himself as a potential god. All of the cries of revolt against 'God' - De Sade, Byron's "Manfred", Schiller's "Robbers", Goethe's "Faust", Hoffmann's mad geniuses - are expressions of this new spirit. Is this why the 'spirits' decided to make a planned and consistent effort at 'communication'? It..
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man
spirit
nineteenth-century
romanticism
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Colin Wilson |
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a876fdc
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It is important to graps that boredom is one of the most common - and undesirable - consequences of 'unicameralism'. Boredom is a feeling of being 'dead inside'; that is to say, loss of contact with our instincts and feelings.
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Colin Wilson |
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8c87523
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Man knows himself as body, and what he knows of spirit comes through grace. The poet would call it inspiration. But the spirit bloweth where it listeth. Man has no control over his inspiration. If a piece of music or a poem has moved him once, he can never be certain that it will happen again. But man hates to think that he has no control over the spirit. It would discourage him too much. He likes to believe that he can summon the spirit by..
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sex
spirit
peak-experience
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Colin Wilson |
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972e086
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n l'shy jmyl@, wl`lm jmyl bl nhy@ ljmlh, wHdwdn lnsny@ hy lly tmn`n mn rw'yth.
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Colin Wilson |
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5aa1328
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n rshrdswn `lm 'wrwb kyf tstGrq f~ lHlm, 'm rwsw fqd `lmh kyf tfkr.
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Colin Wilson |
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a955f89
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The body will destroy the germs of a physical illness within a week; but the mind will preserve germs of morbidity or fear for a lifetime.
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Colin Wilson |
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d208733
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mDmwn rwy@ (tmhn fylhlm mytsr) ljwth hw: 'n tt`lm kyf t`ysh yfwq 'hmy@ 'n tt`lm k~ tksb qwtk.
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Colin Wilson |
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2eefb2b
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Man is a continent, but his conscious mind is no larger than a back garden...man consists almost entirely of unrealized potentials.
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Colin Wilson |
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490ccdd
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lns ldhyn fqdw lqdr@ `l~ lnwm qd ysh`rwn bnw` mn lHsd lkhrfy tjh mn ysyrwn 'thn nwmhm.
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Colin Wilson |
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b5451b1
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rb qT`@ mwsyqy@ 'w lwH@ fny@ twSl rwH lwq`y@ bTryq@ 'rw` w'fDl mn nZr@ flsfy@, wrb msrHy@ njH@ 'w qS@ qSyr@, 'w rwy@ tj`ln nqbD `l~ l'Sl@, dwn lt`mq fy drs@ lflsf@.
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Colin Wilson |
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0297c7a
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n lksl wl`d@ wlD`f tTwWqn wtHddn.
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Colin Wilson |
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78ed52a
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I have tried to show how religion, the backbone of civilisation, hardens into a Church that is unacceptable to Outsiders, and the Outsiders -- the men who strive to become visionaries -- become the Rebels. In our case, the scientific progress that has brought us closer than ever before to conquering the problems of civilisation, has also robbed us of spiritual drive; and the Outsider is doubly a rebel: a rebel against the Established Church..
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Colin Wilson |
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c36b567
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A tired man is already in the grip of death and insanity ... A sane man is a man who is fully awake. As he grows tired, he loses his ability to rise above dreams and delusions, and life becomes steadily more chaotic.
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Colin Wilson |
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21c8205
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But the greatest human problems are not social problems, but decisions that the individual has to make alone. The most important feelings of which man is capable emphasise his separateness from other people, not his kinship with them. The feelings of a mountaineer towards a mountain emphasise his kinship with the mountain rather than with the rest of mankind. The same goes for the leap of the heart experienced by a sailor when he smells the..
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colin-wilson
peak-experience
maslow
transcendence
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Colin Wilson |
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13c10e8
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Freedom posits free-will; that is self-evident. But Will can only operate when there is first a motive. No motive, no willing. But motive is a matter of belief; you would not want to do anything unless you believed it possible and meaningful. And belief must be belief in the existence of something; that is to say, it concerns what is real. So ultimately, freedom depends upon the real. The Outsider's sense of unreality cuts off his freedom a..
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Colin Wilson |
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de64b95
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I have always been aware that human life is dream-like because most human beings exist passively. Their consciousness is little more than a reflection of their environment. In the sexual orgasm, the voltage power of their minds surges, and they become momentarily aware that they are not forty-watt bulbs, but two hundred and fifty, five hundred, a thousand... Then the voltage drops, and they sink back to forty watts without a protest. They a..
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orgasm
passivity
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Colin Wilson |
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1aae6d6
|
n s`d@ qy'd `Zym 'nqdh bldh hy tmman nfs ls`d@ lty tsh`r bh ft@ trqS rqSth l'wl~.
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Colin Wilson |