List of Rene Daumal Quotes

Man Is Head, Chest And Stomach. Each Of These Animals Operates, More Often Than Not, Individually. I Eat, I Feel, I Even, Although Rarely, Think... This Jungle Crawls And Teems, Is Hungry, Roars, Gets Angry, Devours Itself, And Its Cacophonic Concert Does Not Even Stop When You Are Asleep.

A Knife Is Neither True Nor False, But Anyone Impaled On Its Blade Is In Error.

Common Experience Is The Gold Reserve Which Confers An Exchange Value On The Currency Which Words Are; Without This Reserve Of Shared Experiences, All Our Pronouncements Are Checks Drawn On Insufficient Funds.

Art Has A Double Face, Of Expression And Illusion, Just Like Science Has A Double Face: The Reality Of Error And The Phantom Of Truth.

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.

When Feet Doesn't Want To Hold You, You Climb With Your Head. Maybe It Isn't The Natural Order Of Things, But Isn't It Better To Walk With Your Head Than To Think With Your Feet, As It Happens So Frequently?

The Door To The Invisible Must Be Visible.

Each Time Dawn Appears, The Mystery Is There In Its Entirety.

Definition: Alpinism Is The Art Of Going Through The Mountains Confronting The Greatest Dangers With The Biggest Of Cares. What We Call Art Here, Is The Application Of A Knowledge To An Action.

...the Most Serious Thing, And The Strangest, Is That We Are Afraid To The Point Of Panic, Not So Much Of Seeing Ourselves As Of Being Seen By Ourselves. This Is Our Root Absurdity. What Is Behind This Great Fear?

In The Mythic Tradition, The Mountain Is The Bond Between Earth And Sky. Its Solitary Summit Reaches The Sphere Of Eternity, And Its Base Spreads Out In Manifold Foothills Into The World Of Mortals. It Is The Way By Which Man Can Raise Himself To The Divine And By Which The Divine Can Reveal Itself To Man.

Philosophy Teaches How Man Thinks He Thinks; But Drinking Shows How He Really Thinks.