I am 100 percent in favor of the intelligent use of drugs, and 1,000 percent against the thoughtless use of them, whether caffeine or LSD. And drugs are not central to my life.
Timothy LearyRead
My favorite three words in the English language are: ’I don’t know’, because every time I say them, I learn something new.
Interpretation
'I don't know' is a phrase that opens the door to learning and growth.
Timothy Leary's quote emphasizes the importance of acknowledging our limitations in knowledge. By admitting 'I don't know,' we create opportunities for exploration, curiosity, and ultimately, personal growth through the acquisition of new information and experiences.
In practice
In a classroom setting when discussing the importance of asking questions.
I am 100 percent in favor of the intelligent use of drugs, and 1,000 percent against the thoughtless use of them, whether caffeine or LSD. And drugs are not central to my life.
Think for yourself and question authority.
There are three side effects of acid: enhanced long-term memory, decreased short-term memory, and I forget the third.
The brain is not a blind, reactive machine, but a complex, sensitive biocomputer that we can program. And if we don't take the responsibility for programming it, then it will be programmed unwittingly by accident or by the social environnement.
My advice to myself and to everyone else, particularly young people, is to turn on, tune in and drop out. By drop out, I mean to detach yourself from involvement in secular, external social games. But the dropping out has to occur internally before it can occur externally. I'm not telling kids just to quit school; I'm not telling people to quit their jobs. That is an inevitable development of the process of turning on and tuning in.
The danger of psychedelic drugs, the danger of mind-opening, the danger of consciousness expansion, the danger of inner discovery is a danger to the establishment.
I'm sorry for my inability to let unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things.
How many times have I laughed at you telling me plainly that I was too lazy to be anything but a lawyer.
Let us never yield to pessimism, to that bitterness that the devil offers us every day.
You must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.
Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity.
He seemed to be talking about my fears, my insecurity, and my unwillingness to see what was wonderful because tomorrow it might disappear and I might suffer. The gods throw the dice, and they don't ask whether we want to be in the game or not.
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