Idle Thoughts

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Complete freedom is as unattainable as absolute independence from circumstances of any kind; its reality is determined by the degree of that independence.

The meaning of life as such lies in life itself.

The age-old mistake is to equate the meaning of life as such with the meaning of one's own existence.

Time alone is the true measure of all that exists.

Time knows no compromise.

Time is relative both as a physical category and in our emotionally coloured perception of everything that happens.

Time and memory are indulgent only towards what is, in one way or another, in tune with and part of enduring questions and values.

Time is infinite and threefold: yesterday, today, tomorrow; the measure of our days; the cradle of our hopes and the uncompromising judge of their fulfilment.

Subjectively, time is what separates events, determines their sequence and distance from one another, and irrevocably fixes what has happened.

Time and God are almost synonymous.

Time is merciless to everyone, but especially to beautiful women: the price of an initial advantage bestowed by nature at random.

Time flies and life is short, but fortunately almost no one realises this, or at least feels it from moment to moment.

Looking at a rose in bloom, few people think about the soil that nourished it.

Happiness as an enduring sense of inner comfort, complete satisfaction with one's surroundings and absolute safety is, alas, available only to an idiot.

As the person, so the desires; as the desires, so the person.

Everyone needs to believe in something. Time, knowledge and other things may change the objects of belief, but the principle itself remains unshakable in every age.

True faith and charity have nothing to do with noise, vanity or claims to personal gain.

Faith, where it exists, is the most reliable guide both to the innermost recesses of one's own soul and in dealings with the world in all its diversity and infinity.

Faith is a particular state of mind and soul, each locked in a loop of its own.

Everyone lives within their own faith, and by that same faith.

Blessed is the person who believes blindly, for faith takes the place of common sense.

Religion has three aspects: ritual and everyday practice; the structuring of society; and abstract inquiry, or philosophy. The number of adherents diminishes in that same order.

Religion is comfort to some, support to others, a bridle to others still: all is God's will.

Religion is both a political instrument and the oldest and most effective commercial enterprise founded on faith.

Religion as it is actually practised often has nothing in common with what it is meant, in essence, to serve.

The process of acquiring knowledge is endless, yet the possibility of all-encompassing knowledge is ruled out by the practical boundlessness of space and time.

Humanity has accumulated enough information to recognise the boundlessness, and hence the incomprehensibility, of all existence in its entirety, and accordingly to arrive at an objectively grounded rejection of the transcendent.

It is already quite clear today that our knowledge will never be all-encompassing. This inevitably leaves room for the transcendent, though not in the tragicomic operetta forms produced by an immature mind.

The evolution of matter gave rise to life; the evolution of life gave rise to reason; reason gave rise to religion… as a by-product.

Religion offers a universal way of absolving oneself of responsibility for one's decisions, past, present and future.

The most important benefit bestowed by faith is a sense of collective belonging, and therefore of being needed, acquired without any effort.

Any form of collective activity—devotion to football or other causes, religion, patriotism and so on—satisfies its adherents' natural herd instinct and gives them a sense of being needed by society and of their own importance; in orthodox forms, these feelings develop into intolerance of dissent.

Religion as the sole foundation of statehood is no more than a relic of the darkest Middle Ages.

A crime committed by a believer is the consequence either of ignorance or of a departure from the precepts of faith.

The nearer the earthly end, the more readily one believes in the immortality of the soul.

The question of an immortal soul is the question of whether anything can exist without a direct connection to energy-matter.

One's own life usually seems too short.

People come into this world for a time, but as a rule would like to stay for ever, or at least to prolong their stay as much as possible.

Fundamental properties unique to the human mind include both awareness of the inevitability of one's own death and the desire to push that awareness away or camouflage it through religion or temporary, illusory oblivion.

Homo sapiens is ultimately the product of three principles: the instincts of self-preservation and reproduction (the continuation of the species), and religion, which set in motion the capacity for abstract thought and the possibility of collective creative labour.

For all the immensity of what the Almighty has created, perhaps his greatness also lies in his ability to concern himself with something as incomparably insignificant beside it all as each individual human being.

Rationalising our ideas about the universe does not resolve the question of its origins, but turns religion into mythology.

There are many religions, but one God.

The realisation that the centre of the world lies within you is a true blessing of both reason and Providence.

Every deliberate, planned crime is committed twice: first in the mind, then in reality.

Everything in this world is transient, and everything passes… except our weaknesses.

There is no gift more precious than the ability to enjoy to the full every blessing that fate bestows; nor is there a worse punishment than the inability to do so, which condemns a person to constant dissatisfaction with everyone and everything.

Hope, while it lasts, is the best medicine for the soul. That is why uncertainty, for all its torment, is still preferable to a final negative outcome.

Hope is ultimately the most accessible means of preserving oneself as a person.

The need to be heard, sometimes comparable in strength to the reproductive instinct, is an expression of the passionate drive instilled by nature, God or the devil, and is one of the fundamental elements in the evolution of society.

Failure in life is the discrepancy between subjective aspirations and the objective results of one's efforts, whatever their scale.

The degree of one's unfocused bitterness towards everyone and everything is the true measure of how much one's life has failed.

Artificial intelligence is not so much an invention of humanity as a natural product of the evolution of matter. The DNA-gene and the CHIP-gene are stages in that evolution.

Artificial intelligence is not so much an invention of humanity as a natural product of the evolution of matter.

Uncompromising adherence to an established pattern is one way of preserving the self unchanged.

Truly significant creations generally live lives of their own, independently of their creator, while false values depart with him.

Happiness is an ephemeral object of universal desire, interpreted differently in each case, but usually rather vaguely and in the conditional mood.

Happiness, a subjective category, cannot be guaranteed by any outward attributes.

Few things are worse than psychological and emotional dependence on a skirt. Women are often unpredictable, uncompromising and self-serving. It is like a chronic immune-inflammatory process that does not disappear, however prolonged the remission.

A woman's finest adornment is youth, and not always even that.

Those who love make allowances; those who do not love do not forgive.

Love knows no compromise. It is either uplifting happiness or anguish and suffering. Time heals, but does not cure, and neither experience passes without a trace.

No one can disfigure herself and parade her shortcomings quite like a woman without taste.

One of the most insidious and effective female weapons is apparent availability, used frequently and with virtuosity.

The behaviour of a reasonably well-provided-for woman of reproductive age has a predominantly sexual basis: attractive women unconsciously seek confirmation of their attractiveness from as many people as possible, while the rest seek either a way to compensate for its absence or to vent their dissatisfaction with it on everyone around them.

A beautiful woman is, on the whole, a source of social discomfort: for most men, a desirable but unattainable dream; for women, an object of enduring envy.

Female fidelity is as illusory as male constancy.

The nature of male and female inconstancy is not the same: in men it is to some extent genetically determined by the urge to replicate themselves; in women it is most likely a psychological and emotional desire to prolong the festive flowers-and-chocolates phase of a relationship.

Apart from purely mercenary considerations, the biological basis of female behaviour is eroticism, implanted by nature itself as a means and incentive to procreation—that is, to life as such. Everything else, not directly connected with this, is of the devil.

Intimacy with a beautiful and intelligent woman is a reasonably reliable measure of a man's standing, and one of the finest compliments to male vanity.

Women fall into three groups: those who are chosen, those who are not, and those who choose for themselves.

All too often, women remain faithful either out of necessity or for lack of alternatives.

In the public consciousness, the enthusiasm and romanticism of individuals counterbalance the inertia and pragmatism of millions.

Matter may be eternal, but everything material is finite, and everything finite is material.

People tend to live on illusions or hopes for the future, without considering that today is yesterday's tomorrow.

A little money means bread and shelter; a lot of money means personal freedom; a very great deal means power.

At a first meeting a person appears as they can and wish to appear; with longer acquaintance, as they really are.

Greatness of spirit shows most clearly through adversity.

Everyone, without exception, is endowed with the same standard set of virtues and shortcomings. Each person's individuality lies in their proportions.

Everyone, without exception, is endowed with the same standard set of virtues and shortcomings. Each person's individuality is merely a particular expression of their proportions.

The fewer one's demands, the easier life is.

People tend to confuse two decidedly different notions: the meaning of life and the meaning of their own existence.

Equating an author's personality with the truly significant fruits of their work is usually more than problematic.

One can no more atone for a sin committed than change the past; it can only be forgiven, or one can try to forget it.

Everyone is the smith of their own happiness—and unhappiness too.

For a creative person, the cause and measure of inner discomfort is the discrepancy between intention and realisation; for an ambitious person, between self-esteem and how others actually see them.

Everything in this world is relative: our successes, our joys and our sorrows.

The relativity of all existence: for the dying person, death is a universal catastrophe; for their loved ones, a grievous loss; for everyone else, usually no more than an unpleasant episode.

Everyone dies twice: as a person, on ceasing to be themselves, and physically.

Life's finest adornment is the passing stress born of positive emotions; the search for them is its secret purpose.

The best conversation partner for anyone is themselves.

Dialogue with oneself is everyone's lot, but it is sad when it becomes the only form of communication.

The flavour of life lies in its nuances.

Greed is a flaw, envy a biblical vice, but neither is yet a crime.

Our world is beautiful and so vast that no one can possess it, sell it or buy it. It is the priceless inheritance of each and every one of us—but only for as long as we are relatively healthy and relatively free.

Our beautiful, boundless world cannot be monopolised: it belongs to each and every one of us, but only for as long as we are relatively healthy and relatively free.

A word is equivalent to everything that stands behind it. But what exactly that is remains a mystery commensurate with the personality of each person who strives to grasp it.

Truth has no variants.

There are many personal truths, but only one truth.

Greatness of spirit, talent and the power of reason are no guarantee of personal happiness.

The true realm of the spirit begins where the stomach's absolute rule ends.

What matters most to the comfort of mind and soul is not so much possessing anything as feeling content with existence, irrespective of external factors.

A tattoo, unless it is a ritual or a necessity, is both a sign and a marker of its wearer's intellectual deficiency.

People are generally as good or as bad as circumstances allow them to be.

Unvaryingly categorical judgements are a sure sign of a limited mind.

A classic is something that withstands the test of time.

A real contribution to society's collective intelligence usually outlives its author.

The ability to think abstractly is the highest form of matter's self-organisation.

The greatest miracle is the very fact that any one of us has appeared in this boundless world.

For any sensible person, true moral support and the key to inner comfort lie in personal self-sufficiency.

Happiness without inner freedom is illusory, as is inner freedom without self-sufficiency.

The measure of self-sufficiency is the degree to which one is at peace with oneself.

The surest foundation for a subjective sense of happiness is health and one's own self-sufficiency.

In everyday life, the true price of any object is determined by its cost, availability and the expense of acquiring it.

Scientific progress very often provides objective grounds for abandoning previously established patterns of thought.

The pursuit of power for its own sake is one of the most dangerous human passions, readily leading to indiscriminate use of the means of satisfying it.

The broader and deeper our knowledge, the wider, fuller and more colourful the world in which we exist.

The universe, infinite in time and space, can be understood only within the scope and dimensions accessible to us, which differ for each of us.

A thinking person sooner or later recognises the subjective meaninglessness of all existence.

A thinking person sooner or later recognises the meaninglessness of all existence.

Unfortunately, we reach the heights of our own wisdom when it is already of little use either to us or to anyone else.

Despite the traditional condemnation of flattery, in skilled hands it has always been, and remains, a universal key to a psychological lock of any complexity.

Despite its condemnation, flattery in skilled hands has always been, and remains, a universal key to a psychological lock of any complexity.

Higher powers, like truth, know no compromise.

It is no secret that everything in this world has a beginning and an end, and that both very often arrive either at the wrong time or without warning.

Freedom is rather like a Stradivarius violin: it is hard to part with, but harder still to recognise and draw out its hidden potential.

To a very considerable degree, what pleases or upsets us is not only the act itself, but the form it takes.

The eternal predicament of everyday life: the mismatch between possibilities, age and desires…

The eternal predicament of everyday life: the mismatch between possibilities, age and desires.

Life's main tragedy is that life is short…

Wisdom is proportional to the depth with which information is assessed and the ability to respond to it appropriately.

Being informed does not add to wisdom, but makes its application more effective.

Intuition is the ability to grasp the innermost essence of anything with minimal information; its measure is the amount of information needed to do so.

Our brain is a neural network, and intuition is a spark jumping between neurons.

Intuition is a spark jumping between neurons.

The apple of knowledge in Eden turned out to be worm-eaten, and the worm was the fear of death.

In the end, nothing costs a person more dearly than their own stupidity.

Every work of art is both a window into the author's inner world, their subjective reality, and a reflection of that reality in the ornament of their creative imagination and general culture.

Prolonged violence against oneself is a disproportionate price to pay for any benefit.

All normal people soon come to understand that life is a complicated business, but only after living through most of it do they realise quite how complicated.

We do not live in the beautiful world bestowed from above, but in a cage built according to our own understanding—as far from the original design as each of us is from perfection.

In relation to eternity, any span of time is but an instant.

Entering fully into another person's inner world is as impossible as travelling to another universe.

Intelligent conversation gives the inner self many facets.

The dividing line between complete freedom and being unwanted is usually highly illusory.

The likelihood of fulfilment is most often proportional to the strength of the desire, as is the satisfaction of seeing it realised.

It is impossible to win every time.

A pack usually has a first and a last; a herd has neither.

Apart from its inconveniences, forgetfulness has a very useful quality: it frees us from unpleasant memories and pangs of conscience.

The history of countries and peoples has no rational explanation.

Even the memory of the most abundant meal will not fill your stomach.

To climb a new summit, one usually has to leave the previous one behind.

People interest one another to the extent that they offer each other information, advantage, or both.

We interest one another to the extent that we offer each other information.

The eternal lot of a prophet is to be too little in demand at first, then too much; the false prophet's corresponding lot is a frenzy of attention followed by oblivion.

Debts should be repaid, preferably in money.

The key to inner comfort is a proper match between possibilities and desires.

A time comes in everyone's life when the present becomes two-dimensional, the future hazy and the past ephemeral.

Thrifty people fall into three categories: the sensible, the genetically predisposed and the simply poor.

A formally free person lives in a world of their own delineation, but rentiers, or their equivalent, well-off pensioners, have more opportunity to do so.

The criterion of complete indifference, as of true human intimacy, is the absence of discomfort when silent in each other's company.

Flies rarely make mistakes, but that does not guarantee the unquestionable value of what they choose.

The subjective meaning of life, like personality, is individual.

The biological meaning of life's evolution is the preservation and transmission of information through time and space, incorporating carefully selected adaptive changes.

The highest good for the human intellect is the opportunity for conversation with a kindred mind.

Three levels can be distinguished in thought: the practical and concrete, the professional, and the abstract. The second and third may coincide, but need not do so.

Someone truly close to you is someone you not only trust, but with whom you unconsciously identify, at least in part.

Like objective and subjective reality, psychological and emotional life can be external and internal.

Music cannot be put into words.

Real success in life is determined not so much by material accumulation, intellectual achievements or any other benefits as by the degree to which one is at peace with oneself and feels inner comfort.

Mutual trust between business partners is most often inversely proportional to the stakes involved.

The value of capital is determined not only by its monetary equivalent, but also by its availability in the right place at the right time.

On the whole, life is a shallow arc, along whose different segments the same events are perceived and judged in very different ways.

The significance and relative duration of life's ascent, plateau and decline are the destiny bestowed on each person by Providence.

A life without purpose during one's active years is like a boat without rudder or sail.

Life is like a casino: there are different ways to place a bet, but no guarantee of success.

Forced labour corrodes the personality.

It does not matter very much where one finds joy in life. What matters is that it exists, preferably without harming anyone.

Absolute freedom, understood as the ability to realise all one's desires and needs, does not exist because of objective and subjective limitations.

Thoughts visit us almost constantly; wise ones only now and then.

The higher the mound from which you look, the wider the view—though very often at the expense of detail.

A most serious flaw in democracy is the transformation of the voter's voice into a commodity.

Real democracy is impossible without legally protected private property.

A country's true greatness lies in how well its citizens can live there.

The past is ephemeral, the future illusory; only the present is real, this very moment that we value so dismissively little.

Sure signs of the onset of old age are realising what you will no longer need, and what you will never again choose to experience.

The plans of the old are as ephemeral as the dreams of the young.

To the old, youth is attractive in almost any form.

Neither youth nor old age recognises how swiftly it passes.

Old age changes many desires, but does not always make them more reasonable.

Youth lives in the future; old age in the past.

In formal terms, old age resembles cancer: it is not transmitted to others, progresses relentlessly and is virtually untreatable.

Old people are most often needed by no one but themselves.

Old age is very often ugly, and not only on the outside.

Old age, like absolute power, can deform the mind, levelling out virtues and laying bare shortcomings.

Old age is the time when life in dreams sometimes becomes more interesting than life in reality.

Time gradually separates people, narrowing their circle of acquaintances and interests, and leaving those who live long enough increasingly alone with themselves.

Ultimately, old age is a prolonged process of dying.

Death, an absolute evil, has at least one virtue: it frees us from the inconveniences and problems so generously supplied by old age.

One of the most common psychological and emotional predicaments of ageing lies in the dissonance between cognitive potential and physical capabilities.

Professionalism is by no means the worst way for introverts to assert themselves, or for extroverts to advertise themselves.

Sometimes one has to bow even before what one does not respect at all: without bending over the rubbish bin, one runs a considerable risk of missing it.

The level of intelligence is determined by the minimum amount of information required to make the right decision.

Nothing unites a society better than a spirit of protest.

From the conventional viewpoint, most outstanding women poets are simply w…

For the ordinary person, a comfortable existence is often closely connected with a sense of involvement in a cause that matters to them, whether it is truly important or merely seems so to them.

Everyone thinks, but giving voice to one's thoughts is the prerogative of sages and fools who are indifferent to others' opinions.

Consciousness is a subject's capacity to perceive, analyse, synthesise and respond to exogenous and endogenous information. Human consciousness is, in addition, the ability to perceive, process, generate and emotionally colour information of an abstract nature. In general terms, consciousness is the ability to think abstractly.

Consciousness is the combined product of the activity of a subject's entire neural network.

DNA is an unbroken thread of information from the beginning of time, and a break in that thread is, in essence, an event of global significance.

Human greatness often flowers after the earth has received its creator.

As civilisation develops, the productive activity of human society essentially amounts to transforming labour into virtual reality, with its materialisation as an intermediate phase of that process.

To the ordinary person, an acknowledged leader is not only an exceptional individual, but also a symbol, the embodiment of their hopes and aspirations.

The gift of leadership is often realised by using one's own circle as an instrument for achieving a chosen goal.

Everything that exists is nothing other than information materialised in one form or another.

A society's intellectual level is determined by its ability to receive, adequately analyse, preserve and transmit information of varying complexity.

The inevitable is inevitable.

A truly significant creation and its author most often lead separate lives of their own.

Finding something thought irretrievably lost often brings no less joy than acquiring it in the first place.

A subjectively defined meaning of life and hope are very often continuations of one another.

What passes into history is not the real person, but the legend.

The basis of existence is the instincts of self-preservation and preservation of the species; everything else is secondary.

A seed germinates and grows only in suitable soil.

The discrepancy between form and content is the basis and driving force of most human conflicts.

Someone who does not respect themselves should not expect the respect of others.

Everyone is a unique mixture of what nature originally endowed them with and what personal experience has added.

Disappointment lurks not in our hopes, but in reality.

A constant striving not so much for self-improvement as for self-assertion is a reliable sign of an inferiority complex.

Much that is brilliant is simple; alas, the converse does not follow.

Much that is brilliant is simple, but by no means everything simple is brilliant.

Subjectively, a glass half full is better than one half empty.

Lasting human relationships arise either from habit and psychological and emotional inertia, from objective necessity, or from mutual exchange of information and intellectual congruence.

Any infinity is merely an aggregate of finite constituents.

Personal virtues and talents are no guarantee of happiness.

As a rule, we love not what is there, but what we ourselves imagine.

It is hard to find more perfect examples of the mind's ingenuity than the excuses for our weaknesses.

The right to determine other people's destinies entails a voluntary restriction of one's personal freedom.

The most important measure of a leader's competence is the ability to select qualified people for productive teamwork.

God's design consists in preserving society as an instrument for ensuring the next stage of nature's evolution. A necessary condition for maintaining the quality of the human race is the constant renewal of its constituent elements as they wear out physiologically and intellectually.

Human beings are mortal by the design of Providence, for the succession of generations is one of the conditions for optimising the process of matter's perpetual evolution as such.

A human being is ultimately no more than an intermediate form of existence of evolving matter.

The absence of a sense of humour is simply a form of congenital disorder, calling for indulgence just as all the more obvious ones do.

Coincidence is not yet a pattern; resemblance is not yet identity. Speculation on these facts is merely fertile ground for conspiracy theories.

The foundation of a rationally structured society is regulated, controlled inequality, originally determined by nature itself.

A shadowy future magnifies the past.

The magic of the internet lies in the possibility of assimilating other people's thoughts and emotions with a minimum of personal effort and expense.

Human intelligence, as the culmination of the species' evolution, is an indivisible complex of a mind that thinks both concretely and abstractly, and a boundless range of emotions.

The world of human emotions is as extensive as objective reality.

Life is an inexplicable force that temporarily integrates a certain quantity of indestructible elementary particles, determining their interaction with one another and with the environment.

Life is a special form of energy-dependent self-organisation of matter, directed towards its own reproduction and the optimisation of its continued existence, in the same form where possible.

The death of a living subject is, above all, the loss of its ability to extract energy from the environment for self-preservation.

The death of a living subject is merely the loss of its ability to extract energy from the environment for its own preservation.

The place where events have occurred, including death, can no more be changed than those events can be undone.

Every age has its own songs.

Music is one way of encoding psychological and emotional information.

An enlightened mind and blind faith are, in essence, two sides of the same coin.

Love brings happiness only when it is mutual.

A genius is not necessarily kind.

Every person is unique; a genius all the more so.

Literature is a keyhole into the author's inner world, into their soul, despite all the author's camouflage.

Almost the worst fate that can befall a country and its people is technological backwardness in relation to the rest of the world, which inevitably brings intellectual dependence and a high probability of both political and economic subordination.

The social maturity of a state is determined not so much by its level of economic development as by how well children and old people can live there.

A country that sets itself against the entire civilised world will not be able to continue in its previous form.

Freedom—the unregulated ability always to be oneself—is virtually impossible.

Freedom is the unregulated ability always to be oneself.

To obtain the right answer, the question must be correctly framed.

Asking the right questions in the right way is no less important than answering them correctly.

The human tendency towards self-assertion often astonishes by the variety of means chosen and the force of the drive behind it.

Knowledge is valuable in itself, but possessing it does not yet mean being able to do or have anything.

Power does not add intelligence, but lays bare the worst facets of the mind.

Life, like a medal, has two sides, with the peculiarity that one is smaller than the other: while birth is an improbable accident, departure into non-existence is a fatal inevitability…

Everyone has the right to an opinion of their own, but not everyone has one.

Everything flows, everything changes (Heraclitus of Ephesus), but by no means always for the better (Me).

A person with something to do and the same person with nothing to do are two different people.

Error is both a constant and a passing companion of science.

Youth is faith in the future, or at least in the fact that there is one.

The human mind and soul have as much in common as a musical instrument and the melody drawn from it.

A person's personality is the sum of their mind and soul.

In everyday life, truth is what the conventional majority believes or puts its faith in.

A higher purpose governs the seemingly chaotic interweaving of tree branches: the striving towards light.

Corruption is like cancer: personal benefit at the cost of destroying the organism as a whole.

A most important, strategically vital task in life is to minimise one's own dependence on circumstances of any kind.

The profound essence of true love is psychological and emotional identification with its object.

The fundamental and apparently insurmountable difference between human consciousness and AI is the latter's lack of emotion.

Today, for a rational person, religion is not an object of faith but a tribute to tradition.

Religion is the cradle of reason on the thorny path towards the ability to think abstractly.

God and religion are not identical.

A personified God is an object of religious myth-making.

The mega-universe is practically boundless, and can therefore be known only within the limits of our capacities, which will never encompass all that exists.

Thus, absolute knowledge of the world is impossible.

One cannot make a reliable judgement about the ocean from a glass of water.

Affirming or denying the unknown is pointless and, moreover, foolish and irresponsible.