„I give an idea to Sam. "Destroy time, and chaos may be ordered," I say to him.“
Fonte: The Man Who Studied Yoga (1956), Ch. 5
Contexto: I give an idea to Sam. "Destroy time, and chaos may be ordered," I say to him.
"Destroy time, and chaos may be ordered," he repeats after me, and in desperation to seek his coma, mutters back, "I do not feel my nose, my nose is numb, my eyes are heavy, my eyes are heavy."
So Sam enters the universe of sleep, a man who seeks to live in such a way as to avoid pain, and succeeds merely in avoiding pleasure. What a dreary compromise is life!
Citações relacionadas
— L. K. Samuels American writer 1951
Fonte: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 135
— Robertson Davies, livro A Voice from the Attic
A Voice from the Attic (1960)
Contexto: Complementary to his is Thurber's remark that "humour is a kind of emotional chaos, told about quietly and calmly in retrospect". Emotional chaos is not pleasant; distillation of that chaos afterward may perhaps be pleasant in some of its aspects, and undoubtedly gives pleasure to others.

— Alfred P. Sloan American businessman 1875 - 1966
Alfred P. Sloan in: Industrial Digest and Commidities and Finance, (1925), Vol. 4. p. 16

„In order to understand, I destroyed myself.“
— Fernando Pessoa, livro Livro do Desassossego
A Factless Autobiography, Richard Zenith Edition, Lisbon, 2006, p. 73
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Para compreender, destruí-me.

— Jordan Peterson Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology 1962
Other

„Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.“
— E.M. Forster, livro Howards End
Fonte: Howards End (1910), Ch. 41

— Friedrich Nietzsche, livro Assim Falou Zaratustra
Variante: One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
Fonte: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
— Edwin H. Land American scientist and inventor 1909 - 1991
Generation of Greatness (1957)
Contexto: I believe there are two opposing theories of history, and you have to make your choice. Either you believe that this kind of individual greatness does exist and can be nurtured and developed, that such great individuals can be part of a cooperative community while they continue to be their happy, flourishing, contributing selves — or else you believe that there is some mystical, cyclical, overriding, predetermined, cultural law — a historic determinism.
The great contribution of science is to say that this second theory is nonsense. The great contribution of science is to demonstrate that a person can regard the world as chaos, but can find in himself a method of perceiving, within that chaos, small arrangements of order, that out of himself, and out of the order that previous scientists have generated, he can make things that are exciting and thrilling to make, that are deeply spiritual contributions to himself and to his friends. The scientist comes to the world and says, "I do not understand the divine source, but I know, in a way that I don't understand, that out of chaos I can make order, out of loneliness I can make friendship, out of ugliness I can make beauty."
I believe that men are born this way — that all men are born this way. I know that each of the undergraduates with whom I talked shares this belief. Each of these men felt secretly — it was his very special secret and his deepest secret — that he could be great.
But not many undergraduates come through our present educational system retaining this hope. Our young people, for the most part — unless they are geniuses — after a very short time in college give up any hope of being individually great. They plan, instead, to be good. They plan to be effective, They plan to do their job. They plan to take their healthy place in the community. We might say that today it takes a genius to come out great, and a great man, a merely great man, cannot survive. It has become our habit, therefore, to think that the age of greatness has passed, that the age of the great man is gone, that this is the day of group research, that this is the day of community progress. Yet the very essence of democracy is the absolute faith that while people must cooperate, the first function of democracy, its peculiar gift, is to develop each individual into everything that he might be. But I submit to you that when in each man the dream of personal greatness dies, democracy loses the real source of its future strength.

— Roald Amundsen Norwegian polar researcher, who was the first to reach the South Pole 1872 - 1928
Sydpolen (The South Pole) (1912)

— Ivan Konev Soviet military commander 1897 - 1973
Quoted in "Russia at War, 1941-1945" - Page 779 - by Alexander Werth - 1964.

— Kurt Vonnegut, livro Breakfast of Champions
Breakfast of Champions (1973)
Contexto: I thought Beatrice Keedsler had joined hands with other old-fashioned storytellers to make people believe that life had leading characters, minor characters, significant details, insignificant details, that it had lessons to be learned, tests to be passed, and a beginning, a middle, and an end.
As I approached my fiftieth birthday, I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And then I had come suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books.
Why were so many Americans treated by their government as though their lives were as disposable as paper facial tissues? Because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their madeup tales.
And so on.
Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done.
If all writers would do that, then perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead.
It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.
— Randall Jarrell poet, critic, novelist, essayist 1914 - 1965
“An Unread Book”, p. 40
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

— Lewis Black American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor 1948
Nothing’s Sacred (2005)
Contexto: The only thing dumber than a Democrat or a Republican is when those pricks work together. You see, in our two-party system, the Democrats are the party of no ideas and the Republicans are the party of bad ideas. It usually goes something like this. A Republican will stand up in Congress and say, "I've got a really bad idea." And a Democrat will immediately jump to his feet and declare, "And I can make it shittier."

— Jordan Peterson Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology 1962
Fonte: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifi5KkXig3s "Biblical Series IV: Adam and Eve: Self-Consciousness, Evil, and Death"

— Dave Eggers memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher 1970
Fonte: You Shall Know Our Velocity!