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Portrait of Timothy Leary

Timothy Leary

(1920–1996) Psychologist United States

165 quotes in 906 categories

Timothy Leary urges people to "tune in, turn on, and drop out" as a way to explore inner worlds. He stresses that knowing yourself and questioning authority are key to creating new realities. He also talks about ego death as a step toward deeper self‑understanding.

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Timothy Leary was a psychologist from the United States, best known for The psychedelic experience; a manual based on the Tibetan book of the dead.

Quick Facts About Timothy Leary

Born: October 22, 1920
Died: May 31, 1996
Nationality: United States
Profession: Psychologist
Notable works: The psychedelic experience; a manual based on the Tibetan book of the dead
Spouse: Nena von Schlebrügge

About Timothy Leary

Leary was called a “bold oracle” by some and a “publicity hound” by others. Poet Allen Ginsberg called him a hero of American consciousness, and writer Tom Robbins called him a brave neuronaut. President Richard Nixon called him the most dangerous man in America. During the 1960s and 1970s, at the height of the counterculture movement, he was arrested 36 times.

Quotes by Timothy Leary

Science is all metaphor.

Metaphor

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“Just Say Know”

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“Why not? Yeah”

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“S.M.I.²L.E.”

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“Grow with the flow”

Flow

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Grow within the flow.

Flow

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Tune in, turn on, and drop out.

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Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.

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Turn on, Tune in, Drop out.

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Anything is possible after midnight.

Anything is possible

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Give death a better name or die trying.

Death

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The universe is an intelligence test.

Intelligence

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The Caterpillar cannot understand the butterfly

Butterfly

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The PC is the LSD of the '90s.

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Almost everyone today is brain-damaged by our education which is designed to produce docile automatons.

Brain

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If you want to change the way people respond to you, change the way you respond to people.

Change

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In a carefully prepared, loving LSD session, a woman will inevitably have several hundred orgasms.

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The brain is a robot-computer perfectly designed to fabricate any reality we program it to construct.

Brain

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One cannot evolve from one's robothood until one realizes how totally one has been robotized.

Creativity

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Ritual is to the internal sciences what experiment is to the external sciences.

Experiment

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LSD is known to induce psychosis, in people who have never used it.

Drug

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Whenever in doubt, turn off your mind, relax, float downstream.

Doubt

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My advice to myself and to everyone else, particularly young people, is to turn on, tune in and drop out.

Advice

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Of course, the drug does not produce the transcendent experience. It merely acts as a chemical key — it opens the mind,…

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Pursuing the religious life today without using psychedelics drugs is like studying astronomy with the naked eye because that's how they did…

Astronomy

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We seem to inhabit a universe made up of a small number of elements-particles-bits that swirl in chaotic clouds, occasionally clustering together…

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I've left specific instructions that I do not want to be brought back during a Republican administration.

Administration

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The word "religion" beautifully defines itself, of course. It translates "to bind" from the Latin--"re" means back and "ligare" means to tie…

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I totally deplore the notion of an M.D. giving pills to patients - a medical doctor giving psychological or psychoactive change agents…

Change

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I am 100 percent in favor of the intelligent use of drugs, and 1,000 percent against the thoughtless use of them, whether…

Caffeine

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The general direction of evolution is to produce a serially imprinting, multibrained creature able to decipher its own program, create the technology…

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The neurogenetic meaning of the cultural revolution is now clear. Neurochemicals are designed to be pursuitist, not escapist. They open the nervous…

Biology

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My historical reading of the situation is that these great monolithic empires developed, Rome, Turkey, and so forth, and they always break…

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TURN ON. to contact the ancient energies and wisdoms that are built into your nervous system. They provide unspeakable pleasure and revelation.…

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Current psychological priesthoods ignore the fact that the profession of psychology was originated by Gustav Theodor Fechner, a physicist who recognized that…

Brain

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From my first published paper in 1946, my obsession has been to objectify inner experiences, to demystify the software of human existence.…

Behavior

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I think that marijuana makes you stupid but sensual. I've watched many of my friends and loved ones become more erotic and…

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“Emotions are the lowest form of consciousness. Emotional actions are the most contracted, narrowing, dangerous form of behavior. The romantic poetry and…

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Intelligence is the ultimate aphrodisiac

Aphrodisiac

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I declare that The Beatles are mutants.

Beatles

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Timothy Leary by topic

Psychedelic (23) People (18) Brain (18) Life (16) Inspirational (16) Drug (14) Psychology (13) Love (12) Nervous system (11) Nervous (11) Mind (11)