Kurt Vonnegut
survival agreeing machine thinking servility
“So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.”
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
terrible animal earth immune rid
"We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
planet destroyed manufacturing lousy
“The planet was being destroyed by manufacturing processes, and what was being manufactured was lousy, by and large.”
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
edge see things center
“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.”
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
scum earth saint emergency
“Scum of the Earth as some may be in their daily lives, they can all be saints in emergencies.”
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
pathological personality power impulse action
“Like so many other pathological personalities in positions of power a million years ago, he might do almost anything on impulse, feeling nothing much. The logical explanations for his actions, invented at leisure, always came afterwards”
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
society material posession love compassion human being
“Society is more concerned with material possessions than it is with the true love and compassion of another human being.”
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
love one another themselves
“They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
games made-up real
“Why should I bother with made-up games when there are so many real ones going on?”
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
practice art music dance draw paint essay fame soul grow
"Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
reading writing nourish meditation mind miracle
"I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
saint anywhere behave indecent society
"You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
terror morning high school class run country
"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
waste happy notice
"It's a terrible waste to be happy and not notice it."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
good triumph evil angel organize mafia
"There is no good reason good can't triumph over evil, if only angels will get organized along the lines of the mafia."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
are pretend be careful
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
going on smart tested friendly calm nice time
"I don't know what's going on, and I'm probably not smart enough to understand if somebody was to explain it to me. All I know is we're being tested somehow, by somebody or some thing a whole lot smarter than us, and all I can do is be friendly and keep calm and try and have a nice time till it's over."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
1492 America USA pirate rob cheat kill
"1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
flaw constitution nuts president America USA
"There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
step backward wrong turn right direction
"And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
religion belief christian jew buddhist behave decently reward
"About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort. I am a humanist, which mean, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
secret success endeavor concentration attention
"The secret to success in any human endeavor is total concentration."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
time liquid moment important run away
"Time is liquid. One moment is no more important than any other and all moments quickly run away."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
America USA walth poor hate
"America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves... It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
world ludicous human reluctant laugh believe snarl hate
"...this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
book symbol numeral mark envision Vesuvius Waterloo
"A book is an arrangement of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numerals, and about eight punctuation marks, and people can cast their eyes over these and envision the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or the Battle of Waterloo."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
eighty-three smoking cigarette company promise kill
"I'm eighty-three and I've been smoking since I was eleven. I'm suing the cigarette company because it promised to kill me and it hasn't."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
health authority smoking heavily suicide
"The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
2081 everybody equal smart US Handicapper General
"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
war Vietnam Iraq billionaire trillionaire millionaire progress
"[Vietnam] only made billionaires out of millionaires. [Iraq] is making trillionaires out of billionaires. Now I call that progress."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
humor physiologic response fear
"Humor is an almost physiological response to fear."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
party squander planet resources air water tomorrow
"Don’t spoil the party, but here’s the truth: We have squandered our planet’s resources, including air and water, as though there were no tomorrow, so now there isn’t going to be one."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
liberal conservative gun fetus homosexual rich
"If you want to take my guns away from me, and you're all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other ... you're a liberal. If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you're a conservative. What could be simpler?"
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
political party America USA winners losers imaninary democrats
"The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
everything nothing twist
"Everything is nothing, with a twist."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
genius Bach Shakespeare Einstein superhuman plagiarist future
"Is it possible that seemingly incredible geniuses like Bach and Shakespeare and Einstein were not in fact superhuman, but simply plagiarists, copying great stuff from the future?"
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)