Portrait of Terence McKenna

Terence McKenna

Psychedelic philosopher

Contemporary weird famous 130 sayings

Sayings by Terence McKenna

You are a divine being. You matter, you count. You come from realms of unimaginable wonder, and you are destined to return to those realms.

1990s — Lecture
General Unverifiable

The bigger the group, the more toxic the dynamic.

1990s — Lecture
General Unverifiable

The syntactical structures of English are not adequate to describe the psychedelic experience.

1990s — Interview
General Unverifiable

If you don't have a plan, you become part of somebody else's plan.

1990s — Lecture
General Unverifiable

Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third-story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and cultural models.

1990s — Lecture
General Unverifiable

The creative act is a letting down of the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos where we are suspended, and then pulling out something for the community.

1990s — Lecture
Food & Drink Unverifiable

Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored.

1990s — Lecture
General Unverifiable

The only difference between a madman and me is that I am not mad.

1990s — Quoted often, attributed to Salvador Dalí, but McKenna sometimes used it in his lectures.
Self-Deprecating Unverifiable

What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized. What we call random is just patterns we haven't recognized.

1990s — Lecture
General Unverifiable

Our world is in crisis, and the only way out of it is to change the way we think about it.

1990s — Lecture
General Unverifiable

The message of the psychedelic experience is that it's all one. It's all connected. It's all part of the same thing.

1990s — Interview
Life & Aging Unverifiable

The antidote to the terror of history is to realize that history is a dream.

1990s — Lecture
General Unverifiable

The imagination is the goal of psychic evolution.

1990s — Lecture
General Unverifiable

We are just a way for the cosmos to know itself.

1990s — Lecture
General Unverifiable

The universe is a 'novelty-producing engine.'

1990s — Lecture
General Unverifiable

You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is a psychedelic experience.

1990s — Interview
General Unverifiable

Ego is a structure built out of the language of other people.

1990s — Lecture
Life & Aging Unverifiable

The Archaic Revival is not about going back to the past; it's about going forward to the past.

1990s — Lecture
General Unverifiable

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

1990s — Quoted often, attributed to Alan Kay, but McKenna sometimes used it.
General Unverifiable

You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.

1990s — Often attributed to Rumi, but McKenna used it in his talks.
General Unverifiable
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