Travellers who find themselves astray in some forest must not wander now this way now that

My second maxim was to be as firm and resolute in my actions as I could, and to follow no less constantly the most doubtful opinions, once I had determined on them, than I would if they were very assured, imitating in this travellers, who, finding themselves astray in some forest, must not wander, turning now this way now that, and even less stop in one place, but must walk always as straight as they can in a given direction, and not change direction for weak reasons, even though it was perhaps only chance in the first place which made them choose it; for, by this means, if they do not go exactly where they wish to go they will arrive at least somewhere in the end where they will very likely be better off than in the middle of a forest.

René Descartes, Discourse on Method and The Meditations (Penguin Classics, 1968) pp. 46-47

No artist is pleased

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

Martha Graham, Martha: The Life And Work Of Martha Graham A Biography (1991) p.264

Fountain of consideration

In my religion there would be no exclusive doctrine; all would be love, poetry and doubt. Life would be sacred, because it is all we have, and death, our common denominator, the fountain of consideration.

Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave (Hamish Hamilton, 1945) p. 6

Permutera historien

Själv vågar jag ännu inte tro på någonting, kanske är det förklaringen till att jag måste släppa allt och bara arbeta med detta. Kopiera, permutera, multiplicera – som en övning i produktivt användande av det förflutna och historien, ett användande som inte stannar vid representation eller åminnelse, utan även blir en återtillägnelse, en framtid. En åkallan? Att upprepa, kopiera, variera. Komplicera, permutera, multiplicera. Då spricker det monolitiska, då grumlas det klara. Då förvandlas historien, synbarligen lika oföränderlig som själva verkligheten, till något ofärdigt: det som nyss verkade vara fullbordat och klart öppnas därmed upp för en ny begynnelse, en fortsättning.

Andrezej Tichý, Kairos (Albert Bonniers, 2013)

'I love reason, but my love does not make me a fanatic,' Brotteaux answered. 'Reason is our guide, a light to show us our way; but if you make a divinity of it, it will blind you and lead you into crime.'

Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood (Penguin Books, 1990) p. 80

Certainly it was ordained as a scourge upon the pride of human wisdom, That the wisest of us all should thus outwit ourselves, and eternally forego our purposes in the intemperate act of pursuing them.

Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (Penguin Books, 1988) p. 369

It is the mind that posits noumena in the sense in which its experience of each phenomenon includes a beyond along with it; in the sense in which the mirror has a tain, or the wall an outside. The noumenon is not something separate from the phenomenon, but part and parcel of its essence; and it is within the mind that realities outside or beyond the mind are "posited." To be sure, the language of the mind and of thinking is too narrow and specialized for this more general structural principle, which is also a dialectical one. The more fundamental question for such a doctrine — or for such a method, for such a perspective, if you prefer – is not whether objective reality exists; but rather from what vantage point the operation of positing is itself observable. Are we not outside the mind in another way when we show how the mind itself posits its own limits and its own beyond?

Fredric Jameson, The Hegel Variations (Verso, 2010) pp. 29-30 

Whatever may be its indetermination, be it that of "it is necessary [that there be] the future", there is some future and some history, there is perhaps even the beginning of historicity for post-historical Man, beyond man and beyond history such as they have been represented up until now. We must insist on this specific point precisely because it points to an essential lack of specificity, an indetermination that remains the ultimate mark of the future: whatever may be the case concerning the modality or the content of this duty, this necessity, this prescription or this injunction, this pledge, this task, also therefore this promise, this necessary promise, this "it is necessary" is necessary, and that is the law.

Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx (Routledge, 1994) pp. 91-92

We have paid a high enough price for the nostalgia of the whole and the one, for the reconciliation of the concept and the sensible, of the transparent and the communicable experience. Under the general demand for slackening and for appeasement, we can hear the mutterings of the desire for a return of terror, for the realization of the fantasy to seize reality. The answer is: Let us wage a war on totality; let us be witnesses to the unpresentable; let us activate the differences and save the honor of the name.

Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report On Knowledge (Manchester University Press, 1984) p. 82

Postmodern science – by concerning itself with such things as undecidables, the limits of precise control, conflicts characterized by incomplete information, "fracta", catastrophes, and pragmatic paradoxes – is theorizing its own evolution as discontinuous, catastrophic, nonrectifiable, and paradoxical. It is changing the meaning of the word knowledge, while expressing how such a change can take place. it is producing not the known, but the unknown. And it suggests a model of legitimation that has nothing to do with maximized performance, but has as its basis difference understood as paralogy.

Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report On Knowledge (Manchester University Press, 1984) p. 60

Imagine models floating above each other as in distinct dimensions: it is not their homologies that prove suggestive or fruitful, but rather the infinitesimal divergences, the imperceptible lack of fit between the levels – extrapolated out into a continuum whose stages range from the pre-choate and the quizzical gap, to the nagging tension and the sharpness of contradiction itself – genuine thinking always taking place within empty places, these voids that suddenly appear between the most powerful conceptual schemes. Thinking is thus not the concept, but the breakdown in the relationships between the individual concepts, isolated in their splendour like so many galactic systems, drifting apart in the empty mind of the world.

Fredric Jameson, The Cultural Turn (Verso, 1998) p. 76

One cannot, consequently, admit the crude separation of sciences and arts prescribed by modern Western culture. As we know, it has as its corollary the relegation of the arts and literature to the miserable function of distracting human beings from what hounds and harasses them all the time, i.e. the obsession of controlling time. [...] It must never be forgotten that if thinking indeed consists in receiving the event, it follows that no-one can claim to think without being ipso facto in a position of resistance to the procedures for controlling time.

To think is to question everything, including thought, and question, and the process. To question requires that something happen that reason has not yet known. In thinking, one accepts the occurrence for what it is: 'not yet' determined. One does not prejudge it, and there is no security. Peregrination in the desert. One cannot write without bearing witness to the abyss of time in its coming.

Jean-François Lyotard, The Inhuman (Polity Press, 1993) p. 74

To believe in God is, therefore, to doubt his existence, his manifestness, his presence. In fact, faith is the spiritual impulse which reveals the profoundest uncertainty about the existence of God (but it is the same with all theological virtues: hope is the spiritual impulse which betrays the deepest despair at the real state of things and charity the spiritual impulse which betrays the deepest contempt for others).

Jean Baudrillard, The Illusion of the End (Polity Press, 1994) p.92

Philosophical activity, by which I mean the free movement of thought and critical reflection, is defined by militant resistance of nihilism. That is, philosophy is defined by the thinking through of the fact that the basis of meaning has become meaningless.

Simon Critchley, Infinitely Demanding; Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance (Verso, 2007) p. 2

Argumentet "Kanske jag drömmer" är meningslöst därför att jag i så fall också drömmer detta yttrande, ja, t.o.m. detta att dessa ord betyder något.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Om Visshet (Thales: 1992) p. 57
Originally published in 1969

I don't think it's relativism. To say that one needs art, or politics, that incorporate ambiguity and contradiction is not to say that one then stops recognizing and condemning things as evil. However, it might stop one being so utterly convinced of the certainty of one's own solutions. There needs to be a strong understanding of fallibility and how the very act of certainty or authoritativeness can bring disasters.

William Kentridge, William Kentridge (Phaidon Press Limited: 1999) p. 34

There is always hope, but that must be combined with irony, and more important, skepticism. The context of knowledge is changing constantly.

Anselm Kiefer, "Heaven Is An Idea" in Anselm Kiefer, Heaven and Earth (Prestel: 2005) p. 166

Den som ville tvivla på allting skulle inte ens nå fram till tvivlet. Tvivlandets spel självt förutsätter redan vissheten.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Om Visshet (Thales: 1992) p. 25
Originally published in 1969

The real importance of reason lies in the power it has to make us understand its own limits.

Eduardo Chillida, "Notebook pages" in Chillida (Pittsburgh International Series: 1979) p. 21