Timothy Leary Quotes

It's only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.

Metamorphosis has always been the greatest symbol of change for poets and artists. Imagine that you could be a caterpillar one moment and a butterfly the next.

Is it sin, which makes the worm a chrysalis, and the chrysalis a butterfly, and the butterfly dust?

To a new generation of butterflies, hopefully less stupid than last. Maybe they were burgeoning even now in fat little cocoons. Or maybe not.

He built a small house, called a cocoon, around himself. He stayed inside for more than two weeks. Then he nibbled a hole in the cocoon, pushed his way out and... he was a beautiful butterfly!

Children are caterpillars and adults are butterflies. No butterfly ever remembers what it felt like being a caterpillar.

In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it is the other way round: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.

There are two bodies - the rudimental and the complete; corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the butterfly. What we call "death," is but the painful metamorphosis. Our present incarnation is progressive, preparatory, temporary. Our future is perfected, ultimate, immortal. The ultimate life is the full design.

We are like caterpillars contemplating pupation.

The butterfly lures us not only because he is beautiful, but because he is transitory. The caterpillar is uglier, but in him we can regard the better joy of becoming.

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

If we're so smart and so much better than all the animals, and man rules the world, why can't we just change all the time from, like, a caterpillar to a butterfly?

To have attained to the human form is a source of joy... What an incomparable bliss it is to undergo these countless transitions.

Since when does the butterfly ask about the caterpillar?

Although the butterfly and the caterpillar are completely different, they are one and the same.

The butterfly does not look back upon its caterpillar self, either fondly or wistfully; it simply flies on.

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.

Everybody knows what a caterpillar is, and it doesn't look anything like a butterfly.

The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.

That last day does not bring extinction to us, but change of place.

Nothing on this earth is standing still. It's either growing or it's dying. No matter if it's a tree or a human being.

You never begin a new life. It's a mistake to think that you end one part of your life and start another as if there's no continuity.

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.

Because I'm not the same today as I was in '58, or '59 or even '71.

All Things Change (Omnium Rerum Vicissitudo)