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Bad critics judge a work of art by comparing it to pre-existing theories. They always go wrong when confronted with a masterpiece because masterpieces make their own rules.

Robert Anton Wilson

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Robert Anton Wilson
Age: 74 †
Born: 1932
Born: January 18
Died: 2007
Died: January 11
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Psychologist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Flatbush
Long Island
Robert Edward Wilson
Wrong
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Art
Existing
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Masterpieces
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More quotes by Robert Anton Wilson

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Belief is the death of intelligence.
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The normal is that which nobody quite is. If you listen to seemingly dull people very closely, you'll see that they're all mad in different and interesting ways, and are merely struggling to hide it.
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The fear of death is the beginning of slavery.
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I regard belief as a form of brain damage.
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under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being.
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Hippies generally aren't busy with anything except feeling sorry for themselves.
Robert Anton Wilson
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I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread.
Robert Anton Wilson
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Show me a movement that doesn't hate somebody and I will join it at once.
Robert Anton Wilson
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Nothing of any importance can be taught. It can only be learned, and with blood and sweat.
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We live in an age of artificial scarcity, maintained by ignorance and fear.
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The ultimate weapon isn't this plague out in Vegas, or any new super H-bomb. The ultimate weapon has always existed. Every man, every woman, and every child owns it. It's the ability to say No and take the consequences.
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Following Korzybski, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes... My only originality lies in applying this zetetic attitude outside the hardest of the hard sciences, physics, to softer sciences and then to non-sciences like politics, ideology, jury verdicts and, of course, conspiracy theory.
Robert Anton Wilson
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A Discordian is someone who sees windmills and thinks they might be giants
Robert Anton Wilson
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He who lives happiest has forgotten most
Robert Anton Wilson
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Most of the characteristics which make for success in writing are precisely those which we are all taught to repress ... the firm belief that you are an important person, that you are a lot smarter than most people, and that your ideas are so damned important that everybody should listen to you.
Robert Anton Wilson
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Certitude belongs exclusively to those who only look in one encyclopedia.
Robert Anton Wilson
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I find the universe so staggering that I just don't have any faith in my ability to grasp it.
Robert Anton Wilson
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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.
Robert Anton Wilson
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Voting wouldn't excite me unless it included electing the directors of the big banks and corporations, who make the real decisions that affect our lives. It's hard to get excited about the trained seals in Washington.
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Is, is, is — the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything is I only know how it seems to me at this moment.
Robert Anton Wilson