“We have been born into a certain Culture, at a certain phase of its organic development, we have certain gifts. These condition the earthly task which we must perform. The metaphysical task is beyond any conditioning, for it would have been the same in any age anywhere. The earthly task is merely the form of the higher task, its organic vehicle.”

“To be enlightened is to be aware, always, of total reality in its immanent otherness - to be aware of it and yet remain in a condition to survive as an animal. Our goal is to discover that we have always been where we ought to be. Unhappily we make the task exceedingly difficult for ourselves.”

“With this idea, being a man with long experience of the sea (and they certainly have a great advantage over other men in any sort of task)...”

“Peering succeeds because it leverages self-organization—a style of production that works more effectively than hierarchical management for certain tasks.”

“We as a human community need to develop a new competency. We need to move from a single-cell social organism to a multicellular social organism. While making this evolutionary leap is no easy task, staring into the abyss is a strong motivator.”

“It has been a long time since philosophers have read men’s souls. It is not their task, we are told. Perhaps. But we must not be surprised if they no longer matter much to us.”