Charles Fort

“It is our expression that the flux between that which isn't and that which won't be, or the state that is commonly and absurdly called "existence," is a rhythm of heavens and hells: that the damned won't stay damed; that salvation only precedes perdition.”

“Venus de Milo. When a mind adjusts to thinking of her as a completeness, even though, by physiologic standards, incomplete, she is beautiful.”

“Scientists who have thought that they were seeking Truth, but who were trying to find out astronomic, or chemic, or biologic truths. But Truth is that besides which there is nothing: nothing to modify it, nothing to question it, nothing to form an exception: the all-inclusive, the complete--By Truth I mean the Universal.”

“By Realness, I mean that which does not merge away into something else, and that which is not partly something else: that which is not a reaction to, or an imitation of, something else. By a real hero, we mean one who is not partly a coward, or whose actions and motives do not merge away into cowardice. But, if in Continuity, all things do merge, by Realness, I mean the Universal, besides which there is nothing with which to merge.”

“The outrageous is the reasonable, if introduced politely.”

“The fittest survive. That survivors survive.”

“The fate of all explanation is to close one door only to have another fly wide open.”

“Existence is Appetite: the gnaw of being; the one attempt of all things to assimilate to some higher attempt.”

“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 any spiritualistic medium can do stunts, there is no more need for special conditions than there is for a chemist to turn down lights, start operations with a hymn, and ask whether there's any chemical present that has affinity with something named Hydrogen.”

“My liveliest interest is not so much in things, as in relations of things. I have spent much time thinking about the alleged pseudo-relations that are called coincidences. What if some of them should not be coincidences?”

“One can't learn much and also be comfortable. One can't learn much and let anybody else be comfortable.”

“Everywhere is the tabooed, or the disregarded. The monks of science dwell in smuggeries that are walled away from event-jungles. Or some of them do. Nowadays a good many of them are going native.”

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

“"Every science is a mutilated octopus. If its tentacles were not clipped to stumps, it would feel its way into disturbing contacts.””

“Against all the opposition in the world, I make this statement —\xa0that once I knew a magician. I was a witness of a performance that may some day be considered understandable, but that, in these primitive times, so transcends what is said to be the known that it is what I mean by magic.”

“I have taken the stand that nobody can be always wrong, but it does seem to me that I have approximated so highly that I am nothing short of a negative genius.”