My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.
Robert Anton WilsonRead
How many times... have you encountered the saying, 'When the student is ready, the Master speaks?' Do you know why that is true? The door opens inward. The Master is everywhere, but the student has to open his mind to hear the Masters Voice.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that learning occurs when the learner is prepared to receive knowledge.
This quote by Robert Anton Wilson suggests that true learning and understanding come when an individual is mentally and emotionally ready. It highlights the importance of the student's mindset in the educational process, implying that knowledge and guidance are always available ('the Master is everywhere'), but the student must be open and receptive to truly absorb and benefit from it.
In practice
In a motivational speech to inspire students to embrace learning.
My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.
There is no governor anywhere. You are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped. If anybody could go into dhyana at will, nobody could be controlled - by fear of prison, by fear of whips or electroshock, by fear of death, even. All existing society is based on keeping those fears alive, to control the masses. Ten people who know would be more dangerous than a million armed anarchists.
I see anarchism as the theoretical ideal to which we are all gradually evolving to a point where everybody can tell the truth to everybody else and nobody can get punished for it. That can only happen without hierarchy and without people having the authority to punish other people.
To work for libertarianism - to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual - used to be an idealistic choice taken for purely idealistic reasons. Now it is an act of intelligent and almost desperate self-defense.
The abandoned infant's cry is rage, not fear.
The only way to stave off boredom, in a complex domesticated primate like humankind, is to increase one's intelligence. This is not appealing to the average primate, who instead invents emotional games (soap opera and grand opera dramatics).
The facilities for advanced education must be evened out and multiplied. No one who can take advantage of a higher education should be denied this chance. You cannot conduct a modern community except with an adequate supply of persons upon whose education, whether humane, technical, or scientific, much time and money have been spent.
In my work a good library is essential. It enables me to learn the background and previous discussions of the various issues I am called upon to decide. It provides the stability and continuity for the rule of law.
Reading can take you places you have never been before.
If you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. This sum may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it; but in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull razors.
Wouldn't it be great if we could look forward to a whole world in which no child will be left behind?
For my part, it was Greek to me.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.