Robert Anton Wilson

Author, Philosopher

Robert Anton Wilson was a writer and philosopher known for his exploration of consciousness and reality, particularly in 'The Illuminatus! Trilogy'.

Born
January 18, 1932
Died
January 11, 2007
Quotes
219
Rank
#3313

About Robert Anton Wilson

Robert Anton Wilson — Life and Legacy

Robert Anton Wilson was an influential writer and philosopher whose work delved into the complexities of consciousness and reality. His notable work, 'The Illuminatus! Trilogy', co-written with Robert Shea, challenges traditional narratives and encourages readers to question their perceptions of truth. Wilson's core philosophy revolves around the idea that reality is subjective, famously encapsulated in his quote, 'Reality is what you can get away with.' This perspective invites individuals to recognize the fluidity of their beliefs and the constructed nature of societal norms. Wilson's exploration of 'reality tunnels' illustrates how our experiences shape our understanding of the world, emphasizing that each person's perception is unique. He argued that by expanding our reality tunnels, we can achieve greater personal freedom and insight. His ideas resonate with those seeking to break free from dogmatic thinking, making his work relevant in discussions about consciousness and perception today. The impact of Wilson's thought continues to influence a diverse audience, from philosophers to writers, as his quotes encourage critical thinking and self-exploration. His legacy lies in his ability to provoke thought and inspire individuals to question the nature of reality itself.

Quote collection

Robert Anton Wilson quotes (page 1 of 11)

219 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"Taking somebody's money without permission is stealing, unless you work for the IRS; then it's taxation. Killing people en masse is homicidal mania, unless you work for the Army; then it's National Defense. Spying on your neighbors is invasion of privacy, unless you work for the FBI; then it's National Security. Running a whorehouse makes you a pimp and poisoning people makes you a murderer, unless you work for the CIA; then it's counter-intelligence."

Read quote 169 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil."

Read quote 108 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point. Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality-tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission."

Read quote 102 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"The function of law and theology are the same: to keep the poor from taking back by violence what the rich have stolen by cunning."

Read quote 101 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"You should view the world as a conspiracy run by a very closely-knit group of nearly omnipotent people, and you should think of those people as yourself and your friends."

Read quote 83 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you."

Read quote 78 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"We're all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels. And when we begin to realize that we're all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels, we find that it is much easier to understand where other people are coming from. All the ones who don't have the same reality tunnel as us do not seem ignorant, or deliberately perverse, or lying, or hypnotized by some mad ideology, they just have a different reality tunnel. And every reality tunnel might tell us something interesting about our world, if we're willing to listen."

Read quote 77 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"Every fact of science was once Damned. Every invention was considered impossible. Every discovery was a nervous shock to some orthodoxy. Every artistic innovation was denounced as fraud and folly. The entire web of culture and "progress," everything on earth that is man-made and not given to us by nature, is the concrete manifestation of some man's refusal to bow to Authority."

Read quote 76 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"In conlusion, there is no conclusion. Things will go on as they always have, getting weirder all the time."

Read quote 74 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"The rapists of the intellectual world become politicians; the seducers become artists."

Read quote 71 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"Philadelphia merely seems dull because it's next to exciting Camden, New Jersey."

Read quote 71 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"Governments are based pincipally on force and deception. Democratic governments are based chiefly on deception, other governments on force. And democratic governments, if you get too uppity, give up on the deception and resort to brute force, as a lot of us found out in the sixites. Those who didn't find out in the sixites will find out in the near future because we're going to have a rerun."

Read quote 70 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"History, sociology, economics, psychology et al. confirmed Joyce's view of Everyman as victim."

Read quote 68 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

""Every national border in Europe," El Eswad added ironically, "marks the place where two gangs of bandits got too exhausted to kill each other anymore and signed a treaty. Patriotism is the delusion that one of these gangs of bandits is better than all the others.""

Read quote 68 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"Of course I'm crazy, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong."

Read quote 68 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"Every kind of ignorance in the world all results from not realizing that our perceptions are gambles. We believe what we see and then we believe our interpretation of it, we don’t even know we are making an interpretation most of the time. We think this is reality."

Read quote 63 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence."

Read quote 60 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

"In order to eat, you have to be hungry. In order to learn, you have to be ignorant. Ignorance is a condition of learning. Pain is a condition of health. Passion is a condition of thought. Death is a condition of life."

Read quote 58 likes
Robert Anton Wilson Author, Philosopher
Popular

""Elohim," the name for the creative power in Genesis, is a female plural, a fact that generations of learned rabbis and Christian theologians have all explained as merely grammatical convention. The King James and most other Bibles translate it as "God," but if you take the grammar literally, it seems to mean "goddesses." Al Shaddai, god of battles, appears later, and YHWH, mispronounced Jehovah, later still."

Read quote 58 likes