Julian Jaynes Quotes

The Lord is a good psychologist: he knows the way our minds run. Turmoil can be the Lord's way of tapping us on the shoulder and saying, 'Don't forget me.'

any writer is inevitably going to work with his own anxieties and desires. If the book is any good it has got to have in it the fire of a personal unconscious mind.

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul.

The mind is a real dangerous neighborhood to travel by ourselves.

Not treasured wealth, nor the consul's lictor, can dispel the mind's bitter conflicts and the cares that flit, like bats, about your fretted roofs.

But maybe you carried your demons with you everywhere, the way you carried your shadow.

The mind scolds the heart, which makes excuses and goes its own way.

It is myself I have never met whose face is pasted on the underside of my mind

Men's activities are occupied into ways -- in grappling with external circumstances and in striving to set things at one in their own topsy-turvy mind.

The mind is continuously running around. It never sits, it can't sit. Sitting seems to be death to it, and in a way it is.

I wouldn't mind leaving myself behind if I could, but I don't know the way out.

As always at these times when he felt really in need of God the front of his mind was serene, but the deeper part, where faith did constant battle with doubt, was terrified that there would be no answer.

When I lost my way, and When the road was too long, I was muttering to myself. Life is just that way.

Pride and curiosity are the two scourges of our souls. The latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved and undecided.

That strange, twisted, torn love. That conflict between what your heart knows is right and what your mind is told is right.

Psychologically, I will not have to seek far if I decide to kill myself, because in my mind and heart I am more ready for this than for the unplanned daily tribulations that mark off the mornings and afternoons.

My face too blind, my mind too limited, my instincts too narrow. But this intensity, doesn't it mean anything?

The world will be at war as long as the mind is at war with itself. If we can't find peace within ourselves, where is the hope for peace in the world?

Freedom was my first great desire. The second, which remains hidden within me to this day, tormenting me, was the desire for sanctity. Hero together with saint: such is mankind's supreme model.

St Paul said it is better to marry than to burn, but my mother taught me it is better to burn than to marry. She wanted to be a nun. She hoped I would be a priest and saved to give me an education while my friends plaited rope and trailed after the plough. I can't be a priest because although my heart is as loud as hers I can pretend no answering riot. I have shouted to God and the Virgin, but they have not shouted back and I'm not interested in the still small voice. Surely a god can meet passion with passion? She says he can. Then he should.

I never had peace of mind.

It's so internalized, the way your mind works in relation to anything - it's a process, but then it isn't. It's working all the time.

I can be very in my head, but I don't trust my head all that much. My head is crazy. My head will talk to itself all day and all night if I let it. And my heart is less nutty, but it's kind of like an overexcited child. I don't trust my heart all that much either. My body is like a good horse. I trust my body.

An improper mind is a perpetual feast.