Charles Fort

If the basic fallacies, or the absence of base, in every specialization of thought can be seen by the units of its opposition, why then we see that all supposed foundations in our whole existence are myths, and that all discussion and supposed progress are the conflicts of phantoms and the overthrow of old delusions by new delusions.

"I sent letters of enquiry to all persons whose names were given, and received not one reply. There are several ways of explaining. One is that it is probable that persons who have experiences such as those told of in this book, receive so many "crank letters" that they answer none. Dear me — once upon a time, I enjoyed a sense of amusement and superiority toward "cranks". And now here am I, a "crank", myself. Like most writers, I have the moralist somewhere in my composition, and here I warn — take care, oh, reader, with whom you are amused, unless you enjoy laughing at yourself."

No conozco ninguna norma en cuestiones de religión, filosofía, ciencia, ni complicación de las tareas domésticas, que no pueda ser moldeada para que se ajuste a cualquier exigencia. Ajustamos las normas a nuestras opiniones o quebrantamos una ley que nos apetece quebrantar

I conceive of nothing, in religion, science or philosophy, that is more than the proper thing to wear, for a while.

Everywhere is the tabooed, or the disregarded. The monks of science dwell in smuggeries that are walled away from the event-jungles. Or some of them do. Nowadays a good many of them are going native. There are scientific dervishes who whirl amok, brandishing startling statements; but mostly they whirl not far from their origins, and their excitements are exaggerations of old-fashioned complacencies.

Call it swoon, or call it hypnosis — but that it is never absolute, and that all of us sometimes have awareness of our condition, and moments of wondering what it's all about and why we do and think the things that sometimes we wake up and find ourselves doing and thinking.

People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.”
-Charles Fort

Is life worth living? Like everybody else, I have many times asked that question, usually deciding negatively, because I am most likely to ask myself whether life is worth living, at times when I am convinced it isn't. One day, in one of my frequent, and probably incurable, scientific moments, it occurred to me to find out. For a month, at the end of each day, I set down a plus sign, or a minus sign, indicating that, in my opinion, life had, or had not, been worth living, that day. At the end of the month, I totted up, and I can't say that I was altogether pleased to learn that the pluses had won the game. It is not dignified to be optimistic.

I conceive of the magic of prayers. I conceive of the magic of blasphemies. There is witchcraft in religion: there may be witchcraft in atheism.

I think we're property.

I should say we belong to something:

That once upon a time, this earth was No-man's Land, that other worlds explored and colonized here, and fought among themselves for possession, but that now it's owned by something:

That something owns this earth — all others warned off.

If there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.

If good and evil are continuous, any crime can be linked with any virtue. Imposture merges away into self-deception so that only relatively has there ever been impostor.

When, upon the closed system of normal preoccupations, a story of a sea serpent appears, it is inhospitably treated. To us of the wider cordialities, it has recommendations for kinder reception. I think that we shall be noted in recognitions of good works for our bizarre charities.

"It seems to me that, very strikingly here, is borne out the general acceptance that ours is only an intermediate existence, in which there is nothing fundamental, or nothing final to take as a positive standard to judge by. Peasants believed in meteorites. Scientists excluded meteorites. Peasants believe in "thunderstones." Scientists exclude "thunderstones." It is useless to argue that peasants are out in the fields, and that scientists are shut up in laboratories and lecture rooms. We cannot take for a real base that, as to phenomena with which they are more familiar, peasants are more likely to be right than are scientists: a host of biologic and meteorologic fallacies of peasants rises against us."

I am God to the cells that compose me.