There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship Рbe it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles Рis that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things Рif they are where you tap real meaning in life Рthen you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already Рit's been codified as myths, proverbs, clich̩s, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power Рyou will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart Рyou will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on. David Foster Wallace
Some Similar Quotes
  1. A half-read book is a half-finished love affair. - David Mitchell
  2. If one wanted to depict the whole thing graphically, every episode, with its climax, would require a three-dimensional, or, rather, no model: every experience is unrepeatable. What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most is that within both of them times and spaces open,... - Italo Calvino
  3. We shouldn't teach great books we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement. - B.F. Skinner
  4. Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live. - Gustave Flaubert
  5. People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading. - Logan Pearsall Smith
More Quotes By David Foster Wallace
  1. In the battle that is philosophy all the techniques of war, including looting and camouflage, are permissible.
  2. There is no such thing as an innocent reading, we must ask what reading we are guilty of.
  3. Ideology... is indispensable in any society if men are to be formed, transformed and equipped to respond to the demands of their conditions of existence.
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