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The brain, knowing that a person can't live forever in this world, rationalizes a future, or other-dimensional, world in which immortality is possible. In other words, religion is the earliest form of science fiction.

Philip Jose Farmer

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Philip Jose Farmer
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More quotes by Philip Jose Farmer

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Everybody should fear only one person, and that person should be himself .
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Burton did not believe in miracles . Nothing happened that could not be explained by physical principles if you knew all the facts .
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Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got.
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The truth is that Trout, like Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury and many others, writes parables. These are set in frames which have become called, for no good reason, science fiction. A better generic term would be 'future fairy tales'. And even this is objectionable, since many science fiction stories take place in the present or the past, far and near.
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Burton sighed, laughed loudly, and said, Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Another fairy tale to give men hope . The old religions have been discredited although some refuse to face even that fact so new ones must be invented.
Philip Jose Farmer
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Give us power, give us light To holdall love within our breast's small space.
Philip Jose Farmer
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This story is about love, which means that it is also about hate.
Philip Jose Farmer
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By now you must have accepted the fact that your religion , in fact, none of the Earthly religions, truly knew what the afterlife would be. All made guesses, and then established these as articles of faith . Though, in a sense, some were near the mark, if you accept their revelations as symbolic .
Philip Jose Farmer
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All the human beings I met were either sure that there would be no afterlife or else that they would get preferential treatment in the hereafter.
Philip Jose Farmer
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Now we have lit a candle to the power Of atoms now we know we're heirs of light Itself.
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Dullard: Someone who looks up a thing in the encyclopedia, turns directly to the entry, reads it, and then closes the book.
Philip Jose Farmer
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One thing is sure, O comrades, that the love That fights to keep us rooted in the earth, But also urges us to dare the stars, This irresistible, this ancient power Wedged in the soul, unshakable, is the light That burns our roots and leaves us free for Space.
Philip Jose Farmer
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Sawbeaked epitome of bodiless Idea, tossed by gusts of ether, dive Through abstract mists and raid the sea of fact Eat rich strange fish, grow long bright feathers, press Form's flesh around thought's rib, and so derive From the act of beauty, beauty of the act.
Philip Jose Farmer
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Reader, pray that soon this Iron Age Will crumble, and Beauty escape the rusting cage.
Philip Jose Farmer
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There are Universes begging for Gods, yet he hangs around this one looking for work.
Philip Jose Farmer
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As science pushes forward, ignorance and superstition gallop around the flanks and bite science in the rear with big dark teeth.
Philip Jose Farmer
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Caught Beauty , held to light, now apes A good, now evil, thing the shifting sign And spectrum of archaic, psychic shapes.
Philip Jose Farmer
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By this he meant that all events, therefore, all men, are interconnected in an unbreakable web. What man does, no matter how seemingly insignificant, vibrates through the strands and affects every man.
Philip Jose Farmer
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Yes, we hope to seed a new, rich earth. We hope to breed a race of men whose power Dwells in hearts as open as all Space Itself, who ask for nothing but the light That rinses the heart of hate so that the stars Above will be below when man has Love.
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