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The attachment to a rationalistic, teleological notion of progress indicates the absence of true progress; he whose life does not unfold satisfyingly under its own momentum is driven to moralize it, to set up goals and rationalize their achievement as progress.

— John Carroll Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974)

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Philosophy

More quotes by John Carroll

A teleology directed to material ends has been substituted for the lust for adventure, variety, and play.

Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974)

By punishing the criminal the moral man hopes to dissuade the evil imprisoned in his own breast from escaping. Fear of self is projected in hatred of the immoral other.

Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974)

Education is the strongest weapon available for restricting the questions people ask, controlling what they think, and ensuring that they get their thoughts ‘from above’.

Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974)

Whereas Marx’s vision of homo faber becomes inoperative within social chains, Stirner’s man makes his own freedom.

Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974)

Men become utilitarian out of fear of the alternative—the chaos of tangled or tepid desires, of rootlessness and boredom.

Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

Every morning
I shall concern myself anew about the boundary
Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No
And pressing forward honor reality.

Martin Buber Power and Love (1926)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Carroll (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.