QUOTES     These quotes are very personal. Most of them are not in any quote inventory. They are from books I love, and these quotes mean a lot more to me than just a nice piece of proza. They mirror my deepest interests and feelings, as well as my love for Chassidism and Jewish culture, and my sense of wonder when looking at this miraculous universe. They also mirror my admiration for certain people, their remarkable insights and their courage to travel against the stream. Many more could be added. Inspiration is seldom in the people who run the world, but in the people who don't.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes. Marcel Proust, French novelist, 1871-1922.

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. Talmud

Always remember that when you have committed yourself to an action, then the whole cosmos will conspire to help you. The keyword is commitment. Mark Hedsel in: The Zelator

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision    for the limits of the world.    Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher 1788-1860

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Albert Einstein, in: Ideas and Opinions.

It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire. Robert Louis Stevenson, writer, 1850-1894.

I am a collector of notes upon subjects that have diversity, such as the sudden appearance of purple Englishmen, and a reported growth of hair on the bald head of a mummy. But my livliest interest is not so much in things, as in the relations of things. I have spend much time thinking about the alleged pseudo-relations that are called coincidences. What if some of them should not be coincidences? Charles Fort (1874-1932) in: Wild Talents.

Every particle of the world is a mirror.    In each atom lies the blazing light of a thousand suns.    Mahmud Shabestari, Sufi Mystic, 15th century.

I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Albert Einstein, physicist, 1879-1955.

Science without Religion is lame. Religion without Science is blind. Albert Einstein.

It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware. Albert Einstein.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. Wolfgang von Goethe, writer, 1749-1832.

We all go on the same search, looking to solve the same old mystery. We will not, of course, ever solve it. We will finally inhabit the Mystery. Ray Bradbury, SF writer.

Science is the systematic quest for knowledge and understanding, whatever the topic, and wherever it leads. Kathleen Erickson, interview SSE.

Don't bite my finger; look where I am pointing. Warren McCullogh, neurophysiologist, 1899-1969.

Mystery creates wonder, and wonder is the basis for man's desire to understand. Who knows what mysteries will be solved in our lifetime, and what new riddles will become the challenge of the new generations. John Keel, journalist, researcher.

A scientific priestcraft - "Thou shalt not!" is crystallized in its frozen textbooks. [...] But sounds have been heard in the sky. [...] Not a sound in the sky, not a thing that has fallen from the sky, not a thing that "should not be, but that has nevertheless been seen in the sky can we, with any sense of freedom, investigate, until first we find out about the incubus that in the past has suffocated even speculation. I shall find out for myself: anybody who cares to may find out with me. Charles Fort (1874-1932) in: New Lands.

It is not necessary to hope in order to undertake;    it is not necessary to succeed in order to persevere.    Willem van Oranje, prince of the Netherlands, 1533-1584.

I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud. Carl Gustav Jung, 1875-1961.

I tell you there's a monster, like all that is darkening and heavy and obstructive in life. It is matter and darkness, it is the anti-soul, it is the ruling power of this land: stupidity. H.G.Wells, writer, 1866-1946.

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. Lyall Watson, biologist and writer.

The Universe begins to look more like a great thought than a machine. Sir James Jeans, British physicist, 1877-1946.

To possess the Word, is to be able to wake up the forces of the Universe. Douchan Gersi in: Faces in the Smoke.

We don't know what electricity is, or what gravitation is, although we use and live by it every day. Miracles are everywhere. Why look for them? Just let them in. Jo Michel, artist.

And this is the reason the cosmos first needs to be devided into the tiniest parts, and enormous shatterings must take place in order to separate the smallest particles. And after they are polished up and clarified, behold: each speck will contain the whole of all existence, and it all is filled with God's light and his glory. Rav Avraham Kook, mystic (1865-1935) in: Glimmerings.

Let us consider a piece of cheese. Where are it's qualities? Not in the cheese, for different observers give different accounts of it. Not in ourselves, for we do not perceive them in the absence of the cheese. They are the result of the union, the seer and the seen, of subject and object. Robert Shea/Robert Anton Wilson in: Illuminatus!

In the end organic as well as anorganic matter is made from the same building blocks. The only difference is how the atoms are arranged. Donald Ingber in The Scientific American.

In the [chemical] soup cycles of reactions interlock    and turn so that, amazingly, countless numbers of    molecules seem to know exactly what they are each    doing. Colorful patterns emerge as the myriad    molecules 'communicate' with one another.    Peter Coveney/Roger Highfield in: Frontiers of    Complexity.

So far, nobody has been able to give a satisfactory definition that makes it possible to distinguish catagorically between 'dead'and 'livng'matter. In the last analyses every living thing consists of atoms - 'dead'particles of elements - which combine to form molecules, which aggregate to macromolecules, which in turn are the building blocks of cells, which combine to form the tissues and organs of any living thing. But at what moment does the combination come to life? Where is the boundary between the animate and the inanimate? As a matter of fact, does a sharp dividing line really exist? Personally, I believe there is no such thing. Andreas Feininger, (1906-1999) in: The Mountains of the Mind.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher, 1813-1855.

The feeling of awe and sense of wonder arises from the recognition of the deep mystery that surrounds us everywhere, and this feeling deepens as our knowledge grows. Anagarika Govinda, 1898-1985, in: The Way of the White Clouds.

There is a fund of knowledge, a    different kind of information, common    to all people everywhere. It's    embodied in folklore and superstition,    in mythology and old wives' tales. It    has been allowed simply because it is    seldom taken seriously and has never    been seen as a threat to organized    science or religion. It is a threat,    because inherent in the natural way    of knowing is a sense of rightness that    in this time of transition and indecision    could serve us very well.    Lyall Watson, biologist and writer in:    Gifts of Unknown Things.

What Nature creates has eternity in it. Isaac Bashevis Singer, author,1904-1991.

Now, Nature - which is to say, reality - is not the simple thing we have been taught to believe that it is. Nor is it the cut-and-dried, one-way highroad built by our modern, western, mechanistic science, as I learned very early while searching for rare animals. Irrespective of our current logic, which is rather primitive, we simply have no pidgeonholes set up as yet to receive the increasing number of "unexplaineds" and seeming "unexplicables" that our methodical searches are bringing to light. Ivan T. Sanderson, zoologist and writer, 1911-1973 in: Investigating the Unexplained.

To create a little flower is the labour of ages. William Blake, mystic, writer, painter, 1757-1827.

Don't ask directions from someone who knows them; it will prevent you from wandering. Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, Chassidic Master, 1772-1810.

It is as fatal as it is cowardly to blink facts because they are not to our taste. John Tyndall, Irish  philosopher, 1820-1893.

That what is yielding and tender belongs to    the realm of Life, and what is hard and strong    belongs to the realm of Death.    Lao Tse, philosopher, 6th or 4th BCE.

In the World-to-Come I shall not be asked why I was you not Abraham, Jacob or Moses; I shall be asked why I was not Zusya. Rabbi Zusya, Chassidic Master,18th Century Poland.

The first act of awe, when man was struck with the beauty and wonder of Nature, was the first spiritual experience. Henryk Skolimowski, eco-philosopher.

What I thought was unreal now, for me, seems in some ways to be more real than what I think to be real, which seems now to be unreal. Fred Alan Wolf, physicist and writer.

Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn't seem to be working. Anonimous.

People have this idea that Enlightenment and realisation is something in a distance - a very fantastic and magnificent happening which will transform everything once and for always. But it's not like that at all. It's something which is so simple you hardly see it. It's right in front of us, so close we don't notice it. And it's something which can happen at any moment. And the moment we see it, there it is. It's been there all the time, but we've had our inner eye closed. When the moments of awareness all link up - we become a Buddha. Tenzin Palmo, Buddhist nun, in: Cave in the Snow.

The forms and the creatures have a purpose. God said,    I was Hidden Treasure, and I desired to be known.    Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, Turkish Sufi mystic, 1207-1273.

Know all things to be like this: As a magician makes illusions of horses, oxen carts and other things, nothing is as it appears. The Buddha.

The psyche's attachment to the brain,    i.e. its space-time limitation, is no longer    as self evident and incontroversible as we have    hitherto been led to believe....It is not only    permissible to doubt the absolute validity of    space-time perception; it is, in view of the    available facts, even imperative to do so.    Carl G. Jung: Psychology and the Occult.

Asking yourself these deeper questions opens up new ways of being in the world. It brings in a breath of fresh air. It makes life more joyful. The real trick of life is not to be in the know, but to be in the mystery. Fred Alan Wolf, physicist, in: What the Bleep Do We Know

Wonder rather than doubt is the root of knowledge. Abraham Joshua Herschel, Rabbi and writer.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge; It is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. Charles Darwin, naturalist, 1809-1882,  in: The Descent of Man.

Sometimes it seems to me that every man is a solidary tree in the midst of the desert, and God has no one else in the whole world, just as man has no one but God in the whole world. Bunam of Pshiskhe, Chassidic Master, 1762-1872 in: 'Souls on Fire'.

To be indifferent - for whatever reason- is to deny not only the validity of existence, but also it's beauty. Betray, and you are a man; torture your neighbor, you're still a man. Evil is human, weakness is human; indifference is not. Eli Wiesel, novelist, in: The Town beyond the Wall.

Now this, in fact, is the real purpose of imagination: not to create fantasies, but to make us aware of other times and other places. When it actually happens, we realize that 'imagination' is a totally inadequate word for this faculty that can lift us like a rocket out of the present moment, and make us aware that we are, in some curious sense, citizens of eternity. Colin Wilson, British writer and philosopher in: Afterlife.

It is well known that most scientists are "theory-driven"rather than "data-driven" This means that scientists are uncomfortable with  "facts" unless some theory can explain them. Being theory-driven also means that scientists fail too see data that contradict their theoretical expectations. This does not mean that they fail to understand the data, but rather that they have a strong tendency literally not to perceive the offending data. Parapsychological "facts" are uncomfortable because there are no well-accepted explanations for why the facts should exist. This does not mean that no scientific theories of psychic phenomena exist; actually, there are dozens. It is the adequacy of the theories that is in question. Dean Radin Ph.D. in: The Concious Universe.

The basic trouble is pure ignorance,    both of facts and of possibility. There is every    excuse for the former, but absolutely none for the latter.    You'll never find anything unless you know what you are    looking for.    This statement, of course, needs qualification and should    better read: If you don't know what you find, you'll not    notice it, or try everything to explain away what you    don't understand.    Ivan T. Sanderson,zoologist, writer and researcher    of anomalies, 1911-1973, in: Invisible Residents.

We inhabit a strange cosmos where nothing is absolute, final or conclusive. Truth is an actor who dons one mask after another, and then vanishes through a secret door in the stage scenery when we reach out to grab him. All he leaves behind is a sardonic chuckle which we record, take away, analize and debate. But we never see his face. Ted Holiday, cryptozoölogist, 1920-1979 in: The Goblin Universe.

Our acceptance is that if Science could absolutely exclude all data but it's own present data, it would be a real system, with positively defined outlines - it would be real. Its seeming approximation to consistency, stability, or realness - is sustained by damning the irreconcilable or the unassimilable. All would be well. All would be heavenly - If the damned would only stay damned. Charles Fort (1874-1932) in: The Book of the Damned.