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In my last post, I shared a great quote from the amazing Y/A novel: The Perks of Being A Wallflower, and even though I’m tempted to share another great quote from the world of ‘traditional’ literature, I’m not going to do so; I’m instead going to share a quote from the world of Philosophy, because besides being a writer, I also consider myself a ‘Philosopher’, so you can only imagine the time I spend inside my own head – I even use a lot of philosophy in my writings – latest being: Pioneers, the novel. 

The quote I’m going to share with you is one by the great Christopher Hitchens, who sadly died in 2011 from cancer. – If not the cancer had taken him, I’m convinced that he would have become our modern time Baruch de Spinoza. 
The quote Christopher Hitchens is most known for – or probably most known for – goes like this:
Take the risk of thinking for yourself – much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way. 

This simple, yet so beautiful and CORRECT quote is beyond my capacity to fully understand; I mean, fully understand. It’s nothing mind-blowing as such, not if you read the words and let them slip away with the same ignorance which you read them with, but if you try to understand the depth of the quote, it becomes mind-blowing. I admire this man with all of my heart, I truly do. 
If you are completely unaware of who Christopher Hitchens is, I highly recommend you to go and study him – I promise, your life will be changed once you let his powerful and rhetorical perfected sentences sink in. 

Here’s just a few other quotes I could have chosen.
A: Religion ends and Philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins and astrology ends, and astronomy begins. (One of my favorites)
B: The Essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.
(I encourage you to try to figure out the essence of this quote) 

I don’t mean to make this a long post, since the 3 quotes I’ve shared with you, will give you a lot to think about, but the meaning of this post is to show you that not all ‘literature’ and ‘word play’ has to come from the traditional world of literature. Sometimes, if a writer needs inspiration or enlightenment, all he has to do is to step out of his traditional reading-zone and seek other type of literature; other type of arts, such as the art of thinking: Philosophy. 

Rest in peace, dear mentor, Christopher Hitchens, we all miss you greatly.