…the wicked man flees though no one pursues.

— Georgi Gospodinov and Angela Rodel, The Physics of Sorrow

In profound meditation, they found, when consciousness is so acutely focused that it is utterly withdrawn from the body and mind, it enters a kind of singularity in which the sense of a separate ego disappears. In this state, the supreme climax of meditation, the seers discovered a core of consciousness beyond time and change. They called it simply Atman, the Self.

— Eknath Easwaran Ed., The Bhagavad Gita

Here, the question seems to be “Should the world be understood via holism or via reductionism?” And the answer of “mu” here rejects the premises of the question, which are that one or the other must be chosen. By unasking the question, i reveals a wider truth: that there is a larger context into which both holistic and reductionistic explanations fit.

— Douglas R Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett, The Mind’s I

This was, without a doubt, a general disease. I could find no better word for it: To ignore the natural wisdom of one’s body, to shun all the signals it constantly sends you about what to pursue and what to avoid, and to trust instead in the things told to you by your superiors, to base your life choices on their words and not on your own inner compass, was a disease. It was a disease because those who did this could not help but be confused, conflicted, and miserable.

— Roman Gelperin, The Master Mind of the Self-Actualizing Person

The people told me, however, that the big ear was not only a man, but a great man, a genius. But I never believed in the people when they spake of great men- and I hold to my belief that it was a reversed cripple, who had too little of everything, and too much of one thing.

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra