Rene Daumal Quotes

• You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.

  Rene Daumal

  Art, Memories, Learning

  50 Copy quote

• It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content... it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble and from babble to confusion.

  Rene Daumal

  Writing, Goal, Confusion

  Rene Daumal (2003). “A Night of Serious Drinking”, p.21, The Overlook Press

  54 Copy quote

• I am dead because I have no desire,
  I have no desire because I think I possess,
  I think I possess because I do not try to give;
  Trying to give, we see that we have nothing;
  Seeing that we have nothing, we try to give ourselves,
  Trying to give ourselves, we see that we are nothing,
  Seeing that we are nothing, we desire to become,
  Desiring to become, we live.

  Rene Daumal

  Thinking, Giving, Desire

  26 Copy quote

• Truth is one, but error proliferates. Man tracks it down and cuts it up into little pieces hoping to turn it into grains of truth. But the ultimate atom will always essentially be an error, a miscalculation.

  Rene Daumal

  Cutting, Men, Errors

  "The Lie of the Truth (Volume 2)". Book by Rene Daumal, 1938.

  26 Copy quote

• In the mythic tradition, the Mountain is the bond between Earth and Sky. Its solitary summit reaches the sphere of eternity, and its base spreads out in manifold foothills into the world of mortals. It is the way by which man can raise himself to the divine and by which the divine can reveal itself to man.

  Rene Daumal

  Men, Sky, Mountain

  14 Copy quote

• Philosophy teaches how man thinks he thinks; but drinking shows how he really thinks.

  Rene Daumal

  Philosophy, Drinking, Men

  Rene Daumal (2003). “A Night of Serious Drinking”, p.55, The Overlook Press

  16 Copy quote

• ...the most serious thing, and the strangest, is that we are afraid to the point of panic, not so much of seeing ourselves as of being seen by ourselves. This is our root absurdity. What is behind this great fear?

  Rene Daumal

  Roots, Serious Things, Panic

  17 Copy quote

• Each time dawn appears, the mystery is there in its entirety.

  Rene Daumal

  Inspirational, Nature, Morning

  "Poetry Black, Poetry White". Fontaine (Paris), No. 19-20, March/April 1942.

  50 Copy quote

• Definition: Alpinism is the art of going through the mountains confronting the greatest dangers with the biggest of cares. What we call art here, is the application of a knowledge to an action.

  Rene Daumal

  Art, Climbing, Mountain

  17 Copy quote

• The door to the invisible must be visible.

  Rene Daumal

  Doors, Invisible, Visible

  10 Copy quote

• When feet doesn't want to hold you, you climb with your head. Maybe it isn't the natural order of things, but isn't it better to walk with your head than to think with your feet, as it happens so frequently?

  Rene Daumal

  Thinking, Climbing, Order

  13 Copy quote

• Words are made for a certain exactness of thought, as tears are for a certain degree of pain. What is least distinct cannot be named; what is clearest is unutterable.

  Rene Daumal

  Pain, Tears, Degrees

  Rene Daumal (2003). “A Night of Serious Drinking”, p.21, The Overlook Press

  7 Copy quote

• Art has a double face, of expression and illusion, just like science has a double face: the reality of error and the phantom of truth.

  Rene Daumal

  Art, Truth, Science

  "The Lie of the Truth (Volume 2)". Book by Rene Daumal, 1938.

  16 Copy quote

• Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are checks drawn on insufficient funds.

  Rene Daumal

  Change, Autism, Gold

  Rene Daumal (2003). “A Night of Serious Drinking”, p.21, The Overlook Press

  9 Copy quote

• A knife is neither true nor false, but anyone impaled on its blade is in error.

  Rene Daumal

  Errors, Knives, Blades

  Rene Daumal (2004). “Mount Analogue”, p.37, The Overlook Press

  9 Copy quote

• Man is head, chest and stomach. Each of these animals operates, more often than not, individually. I eat, I feel, I even, although rarely, think... This jungle crawls and teems, is hungry, roars, gets angry, devours itself, and its cacophonic concert does not even stop when you are asleep.

  Rene Daumal

  Men, Thinking, Animal

  "The Lie of the Truth (Volume 2)". Book by Rene Daumal, 1938.

  7 Copy quote

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