For those in whom a local mythology still works, there is an experience both of accord with the social order, and of harmony with the universe. For those, however, in whom the authorized signs no longer work-or, if working, produce deviant effects-there follows inevitably a sense both of dissociation from the local social nexus and of quest, within and without, for life, which the brain will take to be for 'meaning'.

Every religion, every mythology is true in this sense: It is true as metaphorical of the human and cosmic mystery.

Privation and suffering alone open the mind to all that is hidden to others. (Igjugarjuk)

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.

The senses are a kind of reason. Taste, touch and smell, hearing and seeing, are not merely a means to sensation, enjoyable or otherwise, but they are also a means to knowledge - and are, indeed, your only actual means to knowledge.

Mephistopheles, the machine man, can provide us with all the means, and is thus likely to determine the aims of life as well. But of course the characteristic of Faust, which makes him eligible to be saved, is that he seeks aims that are not those of the machine.

Life will always be sorrowful. We can't change it, but we can change our attitude toward it.