Skip to main content
3 months 1 week ago

Scientists believe there is a hierarchy of facts and that among them may be made a judicious choice. They are right, since otherwise there would be no science... One need only open the eyes to see that the conquests of industry which have enriched so many practical men would never have seen the light, if these practical men alone had existed and if they had not been preceded by unselfish devotees who died poor, who never thought of utility, and yet had a guide far other than caprice.As Mach says, these devotees have spared their successors the trouble of thinking.

0
0
Source
source
Henri Poincaré, The Value of Science (1907) Author's Essay Prefatory to the Translation: "The Choice of Facts," p.4, Tr. George Bruce Halsted
3 months 4 days ago

The open society is one that is deemed in principle to embrace all humanity.

0
0
Source
source
Chapter IV
3 months 1 week ago

It is provable both that the historical sequence was, in its main outlines, a necessary one; and that the causes which determined it apply to the child as to the race. ...as the mind of humanity placed in the midst of phenomena and striving to comprehend them has, after endless comparisons, speculations, experiments, and theories, reached its present knowledge of each subject by a specific route; it may rationally be inferred that the relationship between mind and phenomena is such as to prevent this knowledge from being reached by any other route; and that as each child's mind stands in this same relationship to phenomena, they can be accessible to it only through the same route. Hence in deciding upon the right method of education, an inquiry into the method of civilization will help to guide us.

0
0
1 month 1 week ago

Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.

0
0
Source
source
Introduction, p. x
2 months 1 week ago

The discarnate TV user lives in a world between fantasy and dream, and is in a typically hypnotic state, which is the ultimate form and level of participation.

0
0
Source
source
"A Last Look at the Tube." New York Magazine, 17 March 1978, p. 45-48
3 months 1 week ago

The state of health is a state of nonsensation, even of nonreality. As soon as we cease to suffer, we cease to exist.

0
0
1 week 4 days ago

Whereas, our tenet ever was, and, indeed, it is almost the only landmark which now divides the federalists from the republicans, that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated;...

0
0
4 months 1 week ago

People are deeply imbedded in philosophical, i.e., grammatical confusions. And to free them presupposes pulling them out of the immensely manifold connections they are caught up in.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 9 : Philosophy, p. 185
4 months 2 weeks ago

At present they philosophers seem to be in a very lamentable condition, and such as the poets have given us but a faint notion of in their descriptions of the punishment of Sisyphus and Tantalus. For what can be imagin'd more tormenting, than to seek with eagerness, what for ever flies us; and seek for it in a place, where 'tis impossible it can ever exist?

0
0
Source
source
Part 4, Section 3
1 month 3 weeks ago

It is true that if philosophers have suffered their cause has been amply avenged. Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules; and history records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain. But orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget; and though, at present, bewildered and afraid to move, it is as willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of Genesis contains the beginning and the end of sound science... Darwiniana: the Origin of Species

0
0
Source
source
1860
3 months 1 week ago

The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability. We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express - that is, if he knows what observations would lead him, under certain conditions, to accept the proposition as being true, or reject it as being false.

0
0
Source
source
p. 16.
3 months 3 weeks ago

It is only necessary to make war with five things; with the maladies of the body, the ignorances of the mind, with the passions of the body, with the seditions of the city and the discords of families.

0
0
Source
source
As quoted in The Biblical Museum: A Collection of Notes Explanatory, Homiletic, and Illustrative on the Holy Scriptures, Especially Designed for the Use of Ministers, Bible-students, and Sunday-school Teachers (1873) by James Comper Gray, Vol. V
2 months 1 week ago

The coverage is the war. If there were no coverage, there'd be no war. Yes, the newsmen and the mediamen around the world are actually the fighters, not the soldiers anymore.

0
0
3 months 3 weeks ago

Truth is so great a perfection, that if God would render himself visible to men, he would choose light for his body and truth for his soul.

0
0
Source
source
As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tyron Edwards, p. 592
1 week 4 days ago

Whether the succeeding generation is to be more virtuous than their predecessors, I cannot say; but I am sure they will have more worldly wisdom, and enough, I hope, to know that honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to Nathaniel Macon
4 months 1 week ago

In England women are still occasionally used instead of horses for hauling canal boats, because the labour required to produce horses and machines is an accurately known quantity, while that required to maintain the women of the surplus population is below all calculation.

0
0
Source
source
Vol. I, Ch. 15, Section 2, pg. 430.
3 months 1 week ago

But the extraordinary insight which some persons are able to gain of others from indications so slight that it is difficult to ascertain what they are, is certainly rendered more comprehensible by the view here taken.

0
0
3 weeks 5 days ago

Press on, therefore, as you have begun; perhaps you will be led to perfection, or to a point which you alone understand is still short of perfection.

0
0
1 month 5 days ago

Nature ... is inexorable and immutable; she never transgresses the laws imposed upon her, or cares a whit whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operation are understandable to men. For that reason it appears that nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words. For the Bible is not chained in every expression to conditions as strict as those which govern all physical effects; nor is God any less excellently revealed in Nature's actions than in the sacred statements of the Bible.

0
0
4 months 1 week ago

I wished, by treating Psychology like a natural science, to help her to become one.

0
0
Source
source
A Plea for Psychology as a Natural Science, 1892
4 months 2 weeks ago

It appears, accordingly, from the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that performed by slaves.

0
0
Source
source
Chapter VIII.
1 month 2 weeks ago

Near-ubiquitous technological monitoring is a consequence of the decline of cohesive societies that has occurred alongside the rising demand for individual freedom.

0
0
Source
source
In the Puppet Theatre: An Iron Mountain and a Shifting Spectacle (p. 121)
4 months 1 week ago

One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day.

0
0
Source
source
Act 5, sc. 2

Come then, and let us celebrate in the best way we can the anniversary festival which the imperial city is keeping by sacrifices, with unusual splendour. And yet I feel how difficult it is for the human mind even to form a conception of that Sun who is not visible to the sense, if our notion of Him is to be derived from the Sun that is visible; but to express the same in language, however inadequately, is, perhaps, beyond the capability of man! To fitly explain His glory, I am very well aware, is a thing impossible; in lauding it, however, mediocrity seems the highest point to which human eloquence is able to attain.

0
0
2 months 2 weeks ago

Nothing is wholly obvious without becoming enigmatic. Reality itself is too obvious to be true.

0
0
1 week 4 days ago

It is wrong to condemn people for doing a thing and then offer no alternative but failure. A person could get mad about that.

0
0
Source
source
"The Problem of Tobacco"
2 months 2 weeks ago

In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

0
0
Source
source
Simon, H. A. (1971) "Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World" in: Martin Greenberger, Computers, Communication, and the Public Interest, Baltimore. MD: The Johns Hopkins Press. pp. 40-41.
4 months 1 day ago

And I will tell you something else: there is no birth of all mortal things, nor any end in wretched death, but only a mixing and dissolution of mixtures; 'birth' is so called on the part of mankind.

0
0
Source
source
fr. 8
4 months 1 week ago

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

0
0
2 months 3 weeks ago

The Great Beast is the only object of idolatry, the only ersatz of God, the only imitation of something which is infinitely far from me and which is I myself.

0
0
Source
source
p. 121; footnote in Gravity and Grace
4 months 2 weeks ago

There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.

0
0
Source
source
Aphorism 19
4 months 3 weeks ago

What should a philosopher say, then, in the face of each of the hardships of life? "It was for this that I've been training myself, it was for this that I was practising."

0
0
Source
source
Book III, ch. 10,7.
4 months 1 week ago

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

0
0
Source
source
"Vivisection" (1947), p. 227
2 months 1 week ago

Evidence is the only good reason to believe anything.

0
0
Source
source
Interview shown in AlJazeera ,
4 months 3 weeks ago

For no fact is so simple we believe it at first sight, And there is nothing that exists so great or marvellous That over time mankind does not admire it less and less.

0
0
Source
source
Book II, lines 1026-1029 (tr. Stallings)
1 month 3 weeks ago

I don't believe a committee can write a book. ... It can, oh, govern a country, perhaps. But I don't believe it can write a book.

0
0
Source
source
Interviewed by Christopher Wright (1955). Printed in James Nelson (ed.) Wisdom: Conversations with the Elder Wise Men of Our Day (New York: Norton, 1958) p. 208
2 months 4 weeks ago

Consciousness (conscientia) is participated knowledge, is co-feeling, and co-feeling is com-passion. Love personalizes all that it loves. Only by personalizing it can we fall in love with an idea. And when love is so great and so vital, so strong and so overflowing, that it loves everything, then it personalizes everything and discovers that the total All, that the Universe, is also a person possessing a Consciousness, a Consciousness which in its turn suffers, pities, and loves, and therefore is consciousness. And this Consciousness of the Universe, which a love, personalizing all that it loves, discovers, is what we call God.

0
0
4 months 2 weeks ago

There are three juridical attributes that inseparably belong to the citizen by right. These are: Constitutional freedom, as the right of every citizen to have to obey no other law than that to which he has given his consent or approval; Civil equality, as the right of the citizen to recognize no one as a superior among the people in relation to himself...; and Political independence, as the right to owe his existence and continuance in society not to the arbitrary will of another, but to his own rights and powers as a member of the commonwealth.

0
0
Source
source
Science of Right, 1797
3 weeks 1 day ago

Example is not the main thing. It is the only thing. That is, if the one giving the example is not saying to himself, 'Behold I am giving an example.' That spoils it. Anyone thinking of the example he will give to others has lost his simplicity. Only as a man has simplicity can his example influence others. Sometimes presented in paraphrased form, such as "Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing".

0
0
4 months 1 week ago

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

0
0
Source
source
L'Ingénu, ch.10 (1767) Quoted in The End, part 13 of A Series of Unfortunate Events
1 week 4 days ago

Man, servant and interpreter of Nature, does and understands only as much as he has observed of the order of Nature, either in reality or in mind; he neither knows nor can do more.

0
0
4 months 1 week ago

There are two types of poor people, those who are poor together and those who are poor alone. The first are the true poor, the others are rich people out of luck.

0
0
Source
source
Act 4, sc. 5
1 week 1 day ago

A man standing by a spring of clear, sweet water and cursing it. While the fresh water keeps on bubbling up. He can shovel mud into it, or dung, and the stream will carry it away, wash itself clean, remain unstained. (Hays translation) Suppose that men kill thee, cut thee in pieces, curse thee. What then can these things do to prevent thy mind from remaining pure, wise, sober, just? For instance, if a man should stand by a limpid pure spring, and curse it, the spring never ceases sending up potable water; and if he should cast clay into it or filth, it will speedily disperse them and wash them out, and will not be at all polluted. How then shalt thou possess a perpetual fountain? By forming thyself hourly to freedom conjoined with contentment, simplicity and modesty.

0
0
Source
source
VIII, 51
1 week 5 days ago

Do you believe in dreams, Uncle Simeon? I do; I believe in nothing else. One night I dreamed that invisible enemies had me tied to a dead cypress. Long red arrows were sticking into me from my head to my feet, and the blood was flowing. On my head they had placed a crown of thorns, and intertwined with the thorns were fiery letters which said: "Saint Blasphemer." I am Saint Blasphemer, Rabbi Simeon. So you'd better not ask me anything else, or I'll start my blasphemies.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 10
4 months 2 weeks ago

"You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God" This canon is the mother of all canons against heresy; the causes of error are two; the ignorance of the will of God, and the ignorance or not sufficient consideration of his power.

0
0
Source
source
Of Heresies
4 months 1 week ago

It is an odd circumstance that neither the old nor the new, by itself, is interesting; the absolutely old is insipid; the absolutely new makes no appeal at all. The old in the new is what claims the attention,-the old with a slightly new turn.

0
0
Source
source
Chapter XI: Attention
4 months 1 week ago

The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralisation of the means of production and socialisation of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.

0
0
Source
source
Vol. I, Ch. 32, p. 837.
2 months 4 weeks ago

Glorious is the risk! - καλος γαρ ο κινδυνος, glorious is the risk that we are able to run of our souls never dying ... Faced with this risk, I am presented with arguments designed to eliminate it, arguments demonstrating the absurdity of the belief in the immortality of the soul; but these arguments fail to make any impression on me, for they are reasons and nothing more than reasons, and it is not with reasons that the heart is appeased. I do not want to die - no; I neither want to die nor do I want to want to die; I want to live for ever and ever and ever. I want this "I" to live - this poor "I" that I am and that I feel myself to be here and now, and therefore the problem of the duration of my soul, of my own soul, tortures me.

0
0

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia