Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilsonwas an American author, novelist, essayist, editor, playwright, poet, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized as an Episkopos, Pope, and saint of Discordianism, Wilson helped publicize the group through his writings and interviews...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth18 January 1932
CountryUnited States of America
people
It's only possible to see people when one is able to see the world as others see it.
The average is that which no person quite ever is.
cynics equally everybody except idealists regard
Cynics regard everybody as equally corrupt... idealists regard everybody equally corrupt, except themselves.
alone god people state
My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.
Certitude belongs exclusively to those who only own one encyclopedia.
horror natural
Horror is the natural reaction to the last 5,000 years of history.
children leaving poverty
I will do anything, including highway robbery and murder, to avoid leaving my children in poverty.
meditation labels hopeless
I read everything, including the labels on canned food. I'm a hopeless print addict, a condition alleviated only by daily meditation which breaks the linear-Aristotelian trance. National Lampoon, Scientific American are what I read most obsessively.
opportunity opportunities-to-learn hinder
The things that hinder me are opportunities to learn more and develop further.
philosophy government people
I'm the kind of anarchist whose chief objection to the State is that it kills so many people. Government is the epitome of the deathist philosophy I reject.
born minutes seekers
There's a seeker born every minute.
thinking want sexuality
Masturbation is not the happiest form of sexuality, but the most advisable for him who wants to be alone and think.
constitution hell defects
The Constitution admittedly has a few defects and blemishes, but it still seems a hell of a lot better than the system we have now.
historical-novels hands law
[My wife] liked to collect old encyclopedias from second-hand bookstores, and at one point we had eight of them. When I wrote my first historical novel---back in 1980, before I was online---I used them often as a research tool. For instance, I learned that the Bastille was either 90 feet high or 100 feet or 120 feet. This led me to formulate Wilson's 22nd Law: 'Certitude belongs exclusively to those who only look in one encyclopedia.'