Robert Shea Quotes & Sayings

Let us consider humanity a biogram (the basic DNA blueprint of the human organism and its potentials) united with a logogram (this set of "conditioned verbal habits"). The biogram has not changed in several hundred thousand years; the logogram is different in each society. — Robert Shea

Every combination of two or more human beings has both a useful aspect and a political aspect. — Robert Shea

One simple way to keep organizations from becoming cancerous might be to rotate all jobs on a regular, frequent and mandatory basis, including the leadership positions. — Robert Shea

The ability to get ahead in an organization is simply another talent, like the ability to play chess, paint pictures, do coronary bypass operations or pick pockets. — Robert Shea

My head's leaking," I said. — Robert Shea

To reject even one major tenet of the religion or to violate one major rule of behavior is enough to get one kicked out - or worse. — Robert Shea

Then, of course, after school, a gang of patriots, with the odds around seven-to-one, beat the shit out of me and make me kiss their red-white-and-blue totem. It's no better at home. Mom's an anarchopacifist, Tolstoy and all that, and she wants me to say I didn't fight back. Dad's a Wobbly and wants to be sure that I hurt some of them at least as bad as they hurt me. After they yell at me for a half hour, they yell at each other for two. — Robert Shea

That the more authoritarian organizations survive and prevail goes generally unnoticed because people focus on the objectives of organizations, which are many and varied, rather than on their structures, which lend to be similar. — Robert Shea

But instead I usually say that, though it may surprise them, I too believe in the necessity of organization. — Robert Shea

You are attached to what you attack. — Robert Shea

It is instructive, for instance, to trace the computer industry's decline in vision, idealism, creativity, romance and sheer fun as it becomes more and more important and prosperous. — Robert Shea

Organization. If you want big words to talk to intellectuals with, that's a fine big word, son, just as many syllables as imagination, and it has a lot more realism in it. — Robert Shea

The Gnostics were rapidly driven out of business by the hierarchical orthodox Christians. — Robert Shea

Organized religion provides a model of the way all organizations, from the state down to the village garden club, end a price in terms of a member's freedom of thought and action. — Robert Shea

Sweet Goddess! she thought suddenly. I have never even spoken to him. I know nothing about the man, nothing at all.
What if he tries to get me into some sordid little room and force himself on me, like an animal? How will I fight him off? All alone, not able to cry for help?
No, it will not be like that, it could not be. I would have known if he were that kind of man, and felt repelled. He could not sing and write such beautiful verses, and look so fine if he were not the man I want him to be. Yes, when we meet, it will be as it is in his songs. He will obey, do exactly what I tell him and no more. Oh, I have hoped so long for this. Goddess of Love, let it be beautiful. — Robert Shea

Indeed, one of the most successful and influential religious organizations in history, the Society of Jesus, was consciously modeled along military lines by its founder, Ignatius Loyola. — Robert Shea

Words can help. In the right situation. If they're the wrong words. I mean, the right words. No, Ido mean the wrong words. — Robert Shea

What the fuck are you talking about?" I asked, wondering if I was in some crazy surrealist movie, wandering from telepathic sheriffs to homosexual assassins, to nympho lady Masons, to psychotic pirates, according to a script written in advance by two acid-heads and a Martian humorist. — Robert Shea

ONLY THE MADMAN IS ABSOLUTELY SURE — Robert Shea

Lie down on the floor and keep calm. — Robert Shea

This whole phenomenon of the diversion of organizations from their purposes and ideals does not seem very serious when the scum rise to the top in the bridge club or the offices of a small magazine publisher. — Robert Shea

And yet deep down there is satisfaction, too, for Gruad, long tortured by unreasonable guilt, now has something he can really feel guilty about. — Robert Shea

Simon sipped at his coffee. "Everything in life is a hallucination," he said simply. "Everything in death, too," he added. "The universe is just putting us on. Handing us a line. — Robert Shea

Every man's penis is the prettiest thing in the world to him. From the day he's born until the day he dies. It never loses its endless fascination. And, I kid you not, baby, the same is true of every woman and her pussy. It's the closest thing to a real, blind, helpless love and religious adoration that most people ever achieve. But they'd rather die than admit it. Homosexuality, the urge to kill, petty spites and treacheries, fantasies of sadism, masochism, transvestism, any weird thing you can name, they'll confess all that in a group therapy session. But that deep submerged constant narcissism, that perpetual mental masturbation, is the earliest and most powerful block. They'll never admit it. — Robert Shea

Everything you've ever believed is probably a lie. — Robert Shea

It often happens that when a person possesses a particular ability to an extraordinary degree, nature makes up for it by leaving him or her incompetent in every other department. — Robert Shea

The value of the matter is not worth one one ten-thousandth the value of the form," said Drake. — Robert Shea

As such people achieve influence within the organization, whenever there is a conflict between their own interest and the interest of the organization, their interests will win out. — Robert Shea

Ultimately we may still ask, why can't humans design a perfect society? — Robert Shea

Only Marxists," Dr. Iggy concluded, opening the door to usher Joe into the chapel room, "still
believe in an objective history. Marxists and a few disciples of Ayn Rand. — Robert Shea

It's a dreadfully long monster of a book, and I certainly won't have time to read it, but I'm giving it a thorough skimming. The authors are utterly incompetent - no sense of style or structure at all. It starts out as a detective story, switches to science-fiction, then goes off into the supernatural, and is full of the most detailed information of dozens of ghastly boring subjects. And the time sequence is all out of order in a very pretentious imitation of Faulkner and Joyce. Worst yet, it has the most raunchy sex scenes, thrown in just to make it sell, I'm sure, and the authors - whom I've never heard of - have the supreme bad taste to introduce real political figures into this mishmash and pretend to be exposing a real conspiracy. You can be sure I won't waste time reading such rubbish. — Robert Shea

Even while we busily attend meetings, contribute money and perform our assigned tasks, we suspect that we may be helping to create a force that is inimical to many values we hold dear. — Robert Shea

Because the better an organization is at fulfilling its purpose, the more it attracts people who see the organization as an opportunity to advance themselves. — Robert Shea

Of all human inventions the organization, a machine constructed of people performing interdependent functions, is the most powerful. — Robert Shea

I'm the same man, darling, there's just more of me now. — Robert Shea

I, too, have my code. As long as I love you, your will must be my will. If you believe that yielding to me would be weakness, that accepting my love would destroy you, I will not touch you. You must come to me with the whole of your will, or not at all. — Robert Shea

An archaeologist is a ghoul with credentials. — Robert Shea

Just as predatory animals follow a similar general design and behave in similar ways, so organizations, especially those in competition with one another, must follow certain design principles if they are to succeed and prevail. — Robert Shea

Individuals, too, who cultivate a variety of skills seem brighter, more energetic and more adaptable than those who know how to do one thing only. — Robert Shea

Hang on for some metaphysics. The Aneristic Principle is that of order, the Eristic Principle is that of disorder. On the surface, the Universe seems (to the ignorant) to be ordered; this is the aneristic illusion. Actually, what order is "there" is imposed on primal chaos in the same sense that a person's name is draped over his actual self. It is the job of the scientist, for example, to implement this principle in a practical manner and some are quite brilliant at it. But on closer examination, order disolves into disorder, which is the ERISTIC ILLUSION. - Malaclypse the Younger, K.S.C., Principia Discordia — Robert Shea

Synchronicity is as universal as gravity. When you start looking you find it everywhere.") — Robert Shea

It is bad for a man to be obeyed too often. — Robert Shea

Indeed, if our ancestors of millions of years ago hadn't learned how to care for one another and hunt in packs, they'd all have ended up being eaten by leopards. — Robert Shea

Sink me, nobody of this tub agrees with anybody else about anything, except maybe what the fellow with the horns told the old man in the clouds: Non serviam. — Robert Shea

A permanent division of labor inevitably creates occupational and class inequality and conflict. — Robert Shea

She was a woman with red hair and green eyes - the traits which Satan supposedly relished most in mortal females. — Robert Shea

The key element in tragedy is that heroes and heroines are destroyed by that which appears to be their greatest strength. — Robert Shea

Military organization, like religious organization, can be seen as a paradigm of organization in general. — Robert Shea

But the more an organization succeeds and prospers, the more it is likely to be diverted from its original ideals, principles and purposes. — Robert Shea

Anyone who seeks power wants absolute power. — Robert Shea

...man is a part of nature and what he does is natural and can't be construed as tampering. — Robert Shea

Hagbard began to understand: they are not here to learn, they are here to acquire a piece of paper that would make them eligible for certain jobs... — Robert Shea