Quotes by "Rene Daumal"

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.

This place has only three exits, sir: Madness, and Death.

I am dead because I lack desire, I lack desire because I think I possess, I think I possess because I do not try to give, In trying to give, you see that you have nothing, Seeing that you have nothing, you try to give of yourself, Trying to give of yourself, you see that you are nothing, Seeing that you are nothing, you desire to become, In desiring to become, you begin to live.

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.

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.