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Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities — the political, the religious, the educational authorities — who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing — forming in our minds — their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable open-mindedness, chaotic, confused vulnerability to inform yourself.

— Timothy Leary How to Operate Your Brain (1994)

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More quotes by Timothy Leary

To describe externals, you become a scientist. To describe experience, you become an artist.

If you want to change the way people respond to you, change the way you respond to people.

You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind.

Office Yoga : Simple Stretches for Busy People (2000)

Think for yourself and question authority.

Timothy Leary's track on Sound Bites from the Counter Culture (1989)

When you teach someone how to perform creatively (ie, associate dead symbols in new combinations), you expand his potential for experiencing more widely and richly.

All Timothy Leary quotes →

Attribution

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