Synanon Museum: Quotes

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Synanon is nothing without the words of Chuck, Betty, and many others. These quotations were the common currency of Synanon. We must not forget them.
All CED quotations are copyright © by the Synanon Archives Trust.

67 Quotes
(In order by approximate date)
Date (approximate)	Subject
12-27-12	humanity Kindness is the currency of humanity -- CED?
1800s	Success To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children. to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends. to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others. to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child; a garden patch...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. this is to have succeeded! -- R W Emerson
1800s	Years teach much which days never know The years teach much which the days never know. The persons who compose our company converse, and come and go, and design and execute many things, and somewhat comes of it all, but an unlooked-for result. The individual is always mistaken. He designed many things, and drew in other persons as coadjutors, quarreled with some or all, blundered much, and something is done; all are a little advanced, but the individual is always mistaken. It turns out something new and very unlike what he promised himself. -- R.W. Emerson
1800s	Bad times have value Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss. -- R.W. Emerson
1800s	Good men don't obey laws too well Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well. -- R.W. Emerson
1800s	Vocabulary excluded from polite conversation Thought makes everything fit for use. The vocabulary of an omniscient man would embrace words and images excluded from polite conversation. What would be base, or even obscene, to the obscene, becomes illustrious, spoken in a new connection of thought. -- R.W. Emerson
1800s	There is no immunity to wit Wit makes its own welcome and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit. It is like ice, on which no beauty of form, no majesty of carriage can plead any immunity -- they must walk gingerly, according to the laws of ice, or down they must go, dignity and all. -- R.W. Emerson
1800s	Telling one's story truthfully "There novels will give way, by and by, to diaries or autobiographies -- captivating books, if only a man knew how to choose among his experiences that which is really his experience, and how to record truth truly." -- R.W. Emerson
1800s?	Ralph Waldo Emerson I remember a plaque on the wall of the"Punk Squad" and it's stuck with me ever since. "No man can make me sink so low as to make me hate him". -- R.W.E.
1800s?	Communities "Every institution is the lengthened shadow of one man" -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
1841 publ.	Enthusiasm "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." -- Essay, Circles. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
1904	Thickened Light Just in case anyone has been plagued, as I have, about where the thickened light quote came from, here it is..."This reverence [for nature, in which thought holds the highest position] is the reestablishment of natural order; for as the solidest rocks are made up of invisible gases, the world is made of thickened light and arrested electricity, so men know that ideas are the parents of men and things; there was never anything that did not proceed from a thought." From the essay entitled "The Scholar," in the book entitled Lectures and Biographical Sketches, vol. 10 of the Centennial Edition, 1904. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
1904	Thickened Light From Emerson's lecture "The Scholar," which is contained in Volume 10, Lectures and Biographical Sketches, of the Centennial Edition, 1904. "This reverence is the reestablishment of natural order; for as the solidest rocks are made up of invisible gases, the world is made of thickened light and arrested electricity, so men know that ideas are the parents of men and things; there was never anything that did not proceed from a thought." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
1958	The Game The Game began with an idea I had of getting people together in a room to pursue a conversation with a "line of no line." I began to yell and curse and accuse and ridicule: I talked to everyone in the room as if he had a tail. Boy I felt great, and everyone else loved it too. The next week they all came back. That was the birth of the Synanon Game, which basically hasn't changed at all since 1958. -- CED
1958	Knock it Off Before the days of Synanon nobody had ever told addicts to stop using drugs. People tried to love them out of it, reason them out of it, and motivate them out of it. We said to them: "Hey, KNOCK THAT OFF! If you shoot dope here we'll throw your ass out." -- CED
1961	Mother Love Synanon came into existence because our society is composed of mama's boys and daddy's little girls who have been innundated by attempts to produce nothing but agreeable sensations in them. Character disorders, quite simply, are people who had too strong a dose of "mother love" and were never properly housebroken by fathers. -- CED
1962	Get the people, the money will follow. The childish idea that money can accomplish something without people is rampant in our society. At the top, its always the manipulation of people -- the people business -- that makes for success or failure. -- CED
1964	Father Principle I am proposing a counter-philosophy, a rather old-fashioned, commonsense approach to things: "Good boys and good girls get good things -- bad boys and bad girls get bad things." This idea is the very basis of Synanon. We are a father principle phenomenon which rewards good behavior and punishes bad behavior. -- CED
1964	Wisdom You've got to give it away if you want to keep it. -- CED most likely
1965	Act As If The only way to become powerful in your own universe is to say to yourself, "I'm going to open my mind, adopt a position, and then ACT AS IF that position is valid." -- CED
1965	Childrearing My theory of childrearing is that the more quickly you can get a child out from under the shadow of its mother and into a situation in which demands are made of it by its peers and by adults who are not connected to it by bloodlines, the better it is for the child. -- CED
1965	knowledge The person that does it wrong learns more than the person that does it right. -- CED
1966	Games are unique "You can't sit in the same Game twice." -- CED?
1968	Thickened Light I never have to work very hard to use the information that I live in a motion-normal universe, that what is here today will inevitably change tomorrow. The only thing in this universe which resists movement is the human ego, which is probably the reason we are always so uncomfortable. Synanon is simply my attempt to get a few other heads in tune with the very simple scientific truth that things don't stand still. -- CED
1969	Unicept The only thing that we human beings have over giraffes is that it is possible for us to consciously participate in the evolution of our own species. I think that humanity is wasted on anybody who doesn't do that. Why not be a mule, or a squirrel, or a stalk of celery? -- CED
1970	Synanon government "what we have here is a benevolent dictatorship"...CED addressing a group in a directors game in Oakland. -- CED
1970	Jack Hurst returns to power Chuck tells everyone in Synanon using the game that he and Jack are only ones that have the ability to run Synanon. -- CED
1971	The first day of the rest of your life Today is the first day of the rest of your life -- CED
1972	Synanon School Synanon is a new kind of school which contains an old-fashioned educational posture: we knock a kid on its ass if it doesn't behave properly. I was educated that way in a Jesuit high school. It think it did me a lot of good to have some great big son-of-a-bitch in a black nightgown occasionally put his nose right up to mine and growl "Dederich, do you want to have your teeth rattled?" -- CED
1972	Research University We became a research university, doing research into the business of living. Everybody researches everything else. You know, we spend billions of dollars every year figuring out new ways to make cheese spread. So why not spend a little money finding out why everybody in the world is so miserable that people can't think of anything better to do than walk around with sour looks on their faces buying things? -- CED
1973	Dying "Dying" is a word which should be eliminated from the English language, because there is no such thing. Death is not a process, death is an event. You die at a single point in time, but up to that point, you're not "dying" you're living. The trick then, is to think this way. The trick is to live until you die. -- CED
1973	Banking Character You can lay money up for a rainy day by putting it in a bank, but how do you bank character? In the memories of executives, thats where. One of the biggest problems in any organization is selecting executives who will not forget demonstrations of honesty, loyalty, and guts. -- CED
1974	Synanon is a Religion What we're doing in Synanon is providing ways for religious experience to coexist with a twentieth century mind. Synanon is a religion of irreverance. All other religions, with the possible exception of Zen, are religions of reverence, which don't provide too much room for laughter. I think that if you are going to cope with the increasing amount of frustration in modern life, you've got to learn to laugh at yourself. -- CED
1974	Women and Bald Heads If you put long hair on a dog, you get a long-haired dog. (Said by CED to the women of Synanon after Betty's plea for women to grow their hair back.) -- CED
1974	Women & Power Women have all the power in the world, just being women! Women who don't know how to be women want to be something else -- CED
1974	Love THERE IS NO LOVE! YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -- CED
1974	THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH......This was a sign that was posted in the Walker Town Hall kitchen. Chuck used to say that everyone in Synanon will eat the best food possible (most times)., But everybody has to pull they're weight (work, Gaming etc.) This also pertained to every facet of our lifestyle. You have to earn what you get here. -- CED
1975	Goodbye I'm off in a cloud of hensh! (short for "henshit") -- DLG
1975	Big Man It takes a big man to admit when he is small . ( From sign in Walker Town Hall foyer) -- CED
1976	Acting in Unison There is something thrilling and a little frightening about a bunch of people acting in unison. Whenever we in Synanon act in unison, like clip our heads or stop smoking cigarettes, we scare the hell out of the natives. Which is great, because if you scare them badly enough, they'll do what you tell them. Somebody has to tell them what to do, for God's sake. It might as well be us. -- CED
1977	Sexual Tension The notion that embarking on a love affair should consist of a holding back rather than a mad dash for physical realization is a lost art in this country. For most Americans, the object of courting is to mount as quickly as possible, slam the member into the yawning aperture and fall back on the bed, exhausted, with a look of temporary triumph on one's face. -- CED
1977	Changing Partners Love is the result of cherishing. You can't just decide to love someone -- the love muscle is involuntary. But if you go through certain cherishing motions of conversation, physical affection, and consideration, with another human being, love will come as the inevitable result. In fact there's nothing you can do to stop it. -- CED
1977	Synanon as a religion "[our religion] has great purposes! We educate people out of delinquency by giving them handholds in areas beyond knowing. Isn't that what religion is all about?" -- CED
1977	Religion vs. Patriotism "The strongest hook into people's gut in our time, unlike the middle ages and renaissance, is not religion; it's patriotism." [Chuck also might have meant, 'jingoism,' rather than 'patriotism,' but that was not what word he used] -- CED
1977	Practicing Eternity "How do you practice, 'eternity,' a day at a time?" -- CED
1978	I want to be paid for what I do. It is a traditional article of faith in the United States that if you get up early and work hard making mayonnaise, you should make lots of money, but if you get up in the morning and work hard to teach some dunderhead how to stay out of jail, you're supposed to get your rewards in rich warm feelings. I don't get MY reward from rich warm feelings. I'm an American. I want to be paid for what I do. -- CED
1978	Betty D A great life is possible in Synanon. She reached a peak. She became as good as you can get. We are not gods; we are human beings. She did leave us better than she found us, and she'll make us better than she left us. It seems to me that summarizes a great life. -- CED
1979	Dissipations designed to replicate Chuck's LSD exp "All of the massive dose situations -- trips, dissipations, great crying jags... all came out of a need in Synanon to produce emotional variations without the use of drugs. They were all designed by me to do that." -- CED
1979	Synanon - a product of the spiritual combustion of "Synanon was the product of the spiritual combustion of America, especially in the 60s and 70s." -- Rick Runcie
2011	October fifteenth 2011 Give to the givers and take from the takers. -- RAW
74	PRIME "AESTHETICS ARE PRIME -- CED
75	Mickey Mouse ANYTHING LESS THAN CHANGING THE WORLD IS MICKEY MOUSE TO ME -- CED
Date?	Tomorrow "There must be a tomorrow, because my life overflows today" -- CED
Date?	A sneeze is a cranial orgasm Chuck read it in an article and passed it on to us in Tomales Bay. It just cleared it up for me. I knew I hated to have a sneeze interrupted, never really questioned it, also that there is something bordering on desperation to complete it once it starts. Believe me, I have thoroughly enjoyed every sneeze since. You see, these are the simple pleasures in life that are extremely under -rated in my humble opinion. Namasté, Marji -- CED
Date?	Sleep til noon Sleep til noon and FUCK 'EM ALL! -- CED
early 60s?	Synanon Game "The Game began with an idea I had of getting people together in a room to pursue a conversation with a 'line of no line.' I began to yell and curse and accuse and ridicule. I talked to everyone as if he had a tail. Boy, I felt great and everyone else loved it too. The next week, they all came back. That was the birth of the Synanon Game, which basically hasn't changed at all since 1958." -- CED
Mid-1800s	Emerson quotes from Self-Reliance "We but half-express ourselves and are ashamed of that divine spirit which each of us represents." "Speak your latent conviction and it shall become the universal sense." "Speak the utmost syllable of your conviction." "I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways." "Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string." "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members." "Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist." "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." "Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right." "Thy love afar is spite at home." "Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none." "My life is for itself and not for a spectacle." ". . .nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere." "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." "Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today." "To be great is to be misunderstood." "I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching." "The power men possess to annoy me, I give them by a weak curiosity." "Check this lying hospitality and lying affection." "Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation..." "Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. * * * For everything given, something is taken." "Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the trough to the crest. The persons who make up a nation today, next year die, and their experience dies with them." -- R.W. Emerson
n/a	It Takes Two "It takes two to touch ten thousand" -referring to the influence Chuck and Betty had. -- CED
NONE	The Game "If you sit in a Game in full possession of all of your faculties of understanding, you may as well not be in the Game" -- CED
NONE	The Game "The Game toughens a person. It gives them a very flexible ego that can dodge, duck, bounce around, and recover" -- CED
NONE	The Game "The Game is a lesson in humanness. It is to communicate feelings, to enable one to learn about himself, and to learn about the other person" -- CED
NONE	Favorite Techniques in the Game 1) Defend vigorously; 2) Indict everybody; 3) Employ theatrics; 4) Tap into your own prejudices; 5) Use metaphor; 6) Exaggerate; 7) Lie; 8) Bring up old indictments; 9) Ridicule; 10) Allude to authority; 11) Allege subversion; 12) Involve several people in indictment; 13) Carrom shot -- CED
Not known	Childhood Childhood is convalescence from being dead for all eternity and should therefore be gotten over as quickly as possible. -- CED
OCT 15TH 2011	Key to a long and successful life Always have positive thoughts and make sure you take plenty of naps. -- RAW
Oct. 24, 1977	Synanon contract is to take the gamble "Synanon is a community that has a contract to explore the unknown and take the gamble...whatever it is." CED at Home Place, Badger; one week after night of Changing Partners. -- CED
Unknown	Consciousness When you walk, think of your feet. -- CED
unknown	Complaining and "justified" whining "No man ever stated his griefs as lightly as he might." essay, Spiritual Laws, first paragraph -- R.W. Emerson

© 2024 George Farnsworth