Faith is a strong word in my life. That's one thing my mother has always stressed to me.
So there's only one tactic for the state: kill the seers.
You cannot go against nature. She is stronger than the strongest of men. We can permit ourselves some liberties, but in details only.
The people no longer seek consolation in art. But the refined people, the rich, the idlers seek the new, the extraordinary, the extravagant, the scandalous. I have contented these people with all the many bizarre things that come into my head. And the less they understand, the more they admire it. By amusing myself with all these games, all this nonsense, all these picture puzzles, I became famous. . . I am only a public entertainer who has understood his time.
Whatever is most abstract may perhaps be the summit of reality.
What I achieve the first day can be perfectly valid, but it is not satisfying. If I can go that far spontaneously, then I must shed that result as an old skin and inquire further into the unknown, or at least the not-yet-known-to-myself.
If I paint a hammer and sickle people may think it is a representation of Communism, but for me it is only a hammer and sickle. I just want to reproduce the objects for what they are, not for what they mean.
You don't just wake up one day with dementia or Alzheimer's; these conditions are developmental. Even when a problem triggers the need to collect data, it's reviewed by a specialist and filed away. There's no central repository allowing information to be shared across a multitude of researchers worldwide.
But if you do not have the Tao yourself, what business have you spending your time in vain efforts to bring corrupt politicians into the right path?
I had a period where I thought I might not be good enough to publish.
The American people don't want additional troops on the ground.