John Gray - the silence of animals notes quotes

Freud – “In the realm of fiction we find the plurality of lives which we need.”

Tertullian – “Credo quia absurdum – I believe because it is absurd. “

Few human beings are as unhappy as those who have a gift that no one wants.

The myth of progress is the chief consolation of modern humankind.

Freud dying…Near the end of his illness, when he could no longer smoke, he described life as “a small island of pain floating in an ocean of indifference.”

“The rest is silence.”

“All philosophy is a critique of language.” Wittgenstein

If human life requires repression, it also needs myth.

Denying reality in order to preserve a view of the world is not a practice confined to cults. Cognitive dissonance is the normal human condition.