11 Quotes by Theodore Roszak

Nothing we ever imagined is beyond our powers, only beyond our present self-knowledge.

Nature composes some of her loveliest poems for the microscope and the telescope.

We spend our youth hunting for the reality we think lies on the other side of our illusions. What we find at the other end of our search is what lies on the other side of the movie screen: a dark and desolate space that only reveals the unreality of what we pursued. So we spend our adulthood trying to recapture the illusions. Few of us do.

The more people have time to experience the joys of creativity, the less they will be consumers, especially of mass-produced culture. I see that as a kind of new wealth that counts for more than owning material things. I also see art as something people will do rather than consume, and do it as a natural part of their lives; creative endeavors are a form of profound spiritual satisfaction.

It may, after all, be the bad habit of creative talents to invest themselves in pathological extremes that yield remarkable insights but no durable way of life for those who cannot translate their psychic wounds into significant art or thought.

I think, however, the current fascination with the computer and its principal product, information, deserves a more critical response. This is because the computer does so ingeniously mimic human intelligence that it may significantly shake our confidence in the uses of the mind. And it is the mind that must think about all things, including the computer.

Good magic opens the mysteries to all; bad magic seeks simply to mystify.

The blood is our strength, for it is the power of the heavens and the Earth within us.

The prime strategy of the technocracy “is to level life down to a standard of so-called living that technical expertise can cope with – and then, on that false and exclusive basis, to claim an intimidating omnicompetence over us by its monopoly of the experts.