“Man was first a hunter, and an artist: his early vestiges tell us that alone. But he must always have dreamed, and recognized and guessed and supposed, all the skills of the imagination. Language itself is a continuously imaginative act. Rational discourse outside our familiar territory of Greek logic sounds to our ears like the wildest imagination. The Dogon, a people of West Africa, will tell you that a white fox named Ogo frequently weaves himself a hat of string bean hulls, puts it on his impudent head, and dances in the okra to insult and infuriate God Almighty, and that there's nothing we can do about it except abide him in faith and patience.
This is not folklore, or quaint custom, but as serious a matter to the Dogon as a filling station to us Americans. The imagination; that is, the way we shape and use the world, indeed the way we see the world, has geographical boundaries like islands, continents, and countries. These boundaries can be crossed. That Dogon fox and his impudent dance came to live with us, but in a different body, and to serve a different mode of the imagination. We call him Brer Rabbit.”
Source: The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays
“We can imagine the impossible, provided we do not imagine it in perfect detail and all at once.”
Source: On the Plurality of Worlds
“Truth is hard-hearted and unrelenting, too clear, precise; a lie is much more imaginative.”
Source: The Sun Watches the Sun
“Nothing opens up the mind and the heart like books do, and so they have the power to change the whole world. That's why the are burning books, Ava. To stop us thinking, and feeling, and imagining...”
Source: The Beast's Garden
“And suddenly it came to him. That Strawberry Fields garden he'd come from, and the Freedom Tower he'd been thinking of: taken together, didn't they contain the two words that said it all about this city, the two words that really mattered? It seemed to him that they did. Two words: the one an invitation, the other an ideal, an adventure, a necessity. "Imagine" said the garden. "Freedom" said the tower. Imagine freedom. That was the spirit, the message of this city he loved. You really didn't need anything more. Dream it and do it. But first you must dream it.”
Source: New York
“... there is no place whatever for hatred in the minds of the wise. Only an utter idiot would hate good men, and it is irrational to hate the wicked; for if vice is a species of mental disease comparable to illness in the body, since we regard those who are physically ill as wholly undeserving of hatred and deserving rather of pity, then men with minds oppressed by wickedness, a condition more dreadful than any sickness, should all the more be pitied rather than hounded.”
Source: The Consolation of Philosophy
“Although she was gregarious, she inadvertently separated herself from people because she was so often inside her own head, focusing on her creativity.”
Source: The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School
“For the most expensive way to realize an orgasm, men open their wallets. For the cheapest, they close their eyes.”
Source: N for Nigger: Aphorisms for Grown Children and Childish Grown-ups
“I fake fake to have a fake life. Does that make me a real horse? Buy now for $777, wooden saddle sold separately. Real horseshoes not included. Imaginary ones – neither.”
Source: Nothing is here...
“Lead's erasing then vanishing
Banished from whatever it is they're drinking and it's cleaned
Running from the pitcher as if it's her fantasy”
Source: Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality