Skip to main content
1 week 1 day ago

Above all, the ominous clouds of those phenomena that we are with varying success seeking to explain by means of the quantum of action, are throwing their shadows over the sphere of physical knowledge, threatening no one knows what new revolution.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 3 "Relativity of Space and Time"
2 months 1 week ago

The great reformers of the world turn into the great misanthropists, if circumstances or organisation do not permit them to act. Christ, if He had been a woman, might have been nothing but a great complainer. Peace be with the misanthropists! They have made a step in progress; the next will make them great philanthropists; they are divided but by a line. The next Christ will perhaps be a female Christ. But do we see one woman who looks like a female Christ? or even like "the messenger before" her "face", to go before her and prepare the hearts and minds for her? To this will be answered that half the inmates of Bedlam begin in this way, by fancying that they are "the Christ." People talk about imitating Christ, and imitate Him in the little trifling formal things, such as washing the feet, saying His prayer, and so on; but if anyone attempts the real imitation of Him, there are no bounds to the outcry with which the presumption of that person is condemned.

0
0
3 months 4 weeks ago

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man.

0
0
2 months 3 weeks ago

The determination to print them (his lectures), and to communicate them to the General Public, must also speak for itself; and should it not do so, any other recommendation of them would be thrown away. Thus, with respect to the appearance of this work, I have nothing further to say to the Public, than that I have nothing to say.

0
0
Source
source
Preface
1 month 3 weeks ago

The global village is a place of very arduous interfaces and very abrasive situations.

0
0
4 months 1 day ago

Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.

0
0
Source
source
Chapter II, p. 14.
1 month 3 weeks ago

At no period of human culture have men understood the psychic mechanism involved in invention and technology.

0
0
Source
source
(p. 300)
3 months 3 weeks ago

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs 'pass,' so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

0
0
Source
source
Lecture VI, Pragmatism's Conception of Truth
2 months 1 week ago

Impulse, subjectivity and profanation, the old adversaries of materialistic alienation, now succumb to it. ... The representatives of the opposition to the authoritarian schema become witnesses to the authority of commercial success. ... In the service of success they renounce that insubordinate character which was theirs.

0
0
Source
source
p. 273
One has attained to mastery when one neither goes wrong nor hesitates in the performance.
0
0
3 months 3 weeks ago

He [the devil] always sends errors into the world in pairs-pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them.

0
0
Source
source
Book IV, chapter 6, "Two Notes"
4 months 6 days ago

I could not be true and constant to the argument I handle, if I were not willing to go beyond others; but yet not more willing than to have others go beyond me again: which may the better appear by this, that I have propounded my opinions naked and unarmed, not seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men's judgments by confutations.

0
0
Source
source
Book II
3 months 4 weeks ago

Whatever we know without inference is mental.

0
0
Source
source
Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), p. 224
2 months 2 weeks ago

Poetry is one of the destinies of speech.... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language.

0
0
Source
source
Introduction, sect. 2
Because of the way that myth takes it for granted that miracles are always happening, the waking life of a mythically inspired people the ancient Greeks, for instance more closely resembles a dream than it does the waking world of a scientifically disenchanted thinker.
0
0
3 months 2 weeks ago

Lamachus chid a captain for a fault; and when he had said he would do so no more, "Sir," said he, "in war there is no room for a second miscarriage." Said one to Iphicrates, "What are ye afraid of?" "Of all speeches," said he, "none is so dishonourable for a general as 'I should not have thought of it.'"

0
0
Source
source
52 Iphicrates
3 months 3 weeks ago

The deadliest enemies of nations are not their foreign foes; they always dwell within their borders. And from these internal enemies civilization is always in need of being saved. The nation blest above all nations is she in whom the civic genius of the people does the saving day by day, by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly; by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans or empty quacks.

0
0
Source
source
Robert Gould Shaw: Oration upon the Unveiling of the Shaw Monument
2 weeks 4 days ago

A spontaneous, passionate, yet just, true-meaning man! Full of wild faculty, fire and light; of wild worth, all uncultured; working out his life-task in the depths of the Desert there.

0
0
2 weeks 4 days ago

All this of Liberty and Equality, Electoral suffrages, Independence and so forth, we will take, therefore, to be a temporary phenomenon, by no means a final one. Though likely to last a long time, with sad enough embroilments for us all, we must welcome it, as the penalty of sins that are past, the pledge of inestimable benefits that are coming.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which humans communicate than by the content of the communication.

0
0
Source
source
(p. 23)
2 months 1 week ago

Black women control the world. We are through being discriminated against.

0
0
Source
source
Communion: The Female Search for Love (2002) ISBN 0-06-093829-3
3 months 1 week ago

Rejoice not in another man's misfortune!

0
0
3 months 1 week ago

That which exercises reason is more excellent than that which does not exercise reason; there is nothing more excellent than the universe, therefore the universe exercises reason.

0
0
Source
source
As quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, ii. 8.; iii. 9.
2 months 2 weeks ago

Man must be free of it all, of his bad conscience and of the bad salvation from this conscience in order to become in truth the way. Now, he no longer promises others the fulfillment of his duties, but promises himself the fulfillment of man.

0
0
Source
source
p. 178
2 months 3 weeks ago

The endeavor to keep alive any hoary establishment beyond its natural date is often pernicious and always useless.

0
0
Source
source
The French Revolution, Bk. V, ch. 4
4 months 1 week ago

What is the use of believing, if the dost blaspheme? Thou adorest Him as Head, and dost blaspheme Him in His body. He loves His body. Thou canst cut thyself off from the body, but the Head does not detach itself from its body. "Thou dost honor me in vain," He cries from heaven, "thou dost honor Me in vain!" If someone wished to kiss thy cheek, but insisted at the same time on trampling thy feet; if with his hailed boots he were to crush thy feet as he tries to hold thy head and kiss thee, wouldst thou not interrupt his expression of respect and cry out: "What are thou doing, man? Thou art trampling upon me!" It is for this reason that before He ascended into heaven our Lord Jesus Christ recommended to us His body, by which He was to remain upon earth. For He foresaw that many would pay Him homage because of His glory in heaven, but that their homage would be vain, so long as they despise His members on earth.

0
0
Source
source
(pp. 436-437)
2 weeks 4 days ago

Were we required to characterise this age of ours by any single epithet, we should be tempted to call it, not an Heroical, Devotional, Philosophical, or Moral Age, but, above all others, the Mechanical Age. It is the Age of Machinery, in every outward and inward sense of that word; the age which, with its whole undivided might, forwards, teaches and practises the great art of adapting means to ends. Nothing is now done directly, or by hand; all is by rule and calculated contrivance. For the simplest operation, some helps and accompaniments, some cunning abbreviating process is in readiness. Our old modes of exertion are all discredited, and thrown aside. On every hand, the living artisan is driven from his workshop, to make room for a speedier, inanimate one. The shuttle drops from the fingers of the weaver, and falls into iron fingers that ply it faster.

0
0
4 months 3 weeks ago

Scientific theories can always be improved and are improved. That is one of the glories of science. It is the authoritarian view of the Universe that is frozen in stone and cannot be changed, so that once it is wrong, it is wrong forever.

0
0
2 months 1 week ago

We cannot stem linguistic change, but we can drag our feet. If each of us were to defy Alexander Pope and be the last to lay the old aside, it might not be a better world, but it would be a lovelier language.

0
0
Source
source
Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary (1987), p. 231
3 months 3 weeks ago

Make sure that your religion is a matter between you and God only.

0
0
Source
source
Comment to Maurice O'Connor Drury, as quoted in Wittgenstein Reads Freud : The Myth of the Unconscious (1996) by Jacques Bouveresse, as translated by Carol Cosman, p. 14
3 weeks 3 days ago

Between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections which we call our character.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. VI: "Some Necessary Iconoclasm", p. 168.
2 months 4 weeks ago

...out of the tomb of the murdered Monarchy in France, has arisen a vast, tremendous, unformed spectre, in a far more terrific guise than any which ever yet have overpowered the imagination and subdued the fortitude of man.

0
0
Source
source
p. 7
2 months 2 weeks ago

Whenever convictions are not arrived at by direct contact with the world and the objects themselves, but indirectly through a critique of the opinions of others, the processes of thinking are impregnated with ressentiment. The establishment of "criteria" for testing the correctness of opinions then becomes the most important task. Genuine and fruitful criticism judges all opinions with reference to the object itself. Ressentiment criticism, on the contrary, accepts no "object" that has not stood the test of criticism.

0
0
Source
source
L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 67-68
3 months 3 weeks ago

What is now common to all men is a mere abstract universal, an H.C.F. [Highest Common Factor], and Man's conquest of himself means simply the rule of the Conditioners over the conditioned human material, the world of post-humanity which, some knowingly and some unknowingly, nearly all men in all nations are at present labouring to produce.

0
0
6 days ago

When we come to think about the several benefits in regard to their cause, how have they arisen? Have they arisen out of hate of others and injuring others? Of course we should say no. We should say they have arisen out of love of others and benefiting others. If we should classify one by one all those who love others and benefit others, should we find them to be partial or universal? Of course we should say they are universal. Now, since universal love is the cause of the major benefits in the world, therefore Mozi proclaims universal love is right. And, as has already been said, the interest of the magnanimous lies in procuring benefits for the world and eliminating its calamities. Now that we have found out the consequences of universal love to be the major benefits of the world and the consequences of partiality to be the major calamities in the world; this is the reason why Mozi said partiality is wrong and universality is right.

0
0
Source
source
Book 4; Universal Love III
3 months 4 weeks ago

As to the having and possessing of things, teach them to part with what they have, easily and freely to their friends, and let them find by experience that the most liberal has always the most plenty, with esteem and commendation to boot, and they will quickly learn to practise it.

0
0
Source
source
Sec. 110
3 months 3 weeks ago

The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. For this, indeed, is the main source of our ignorance - the fact that our knowledge can be only finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite. Variant translation: The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, clear, and well-defined will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. The main source of our ignorance lies in the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

0
0
2 months 2 weeks ago

And what has Don Quixote left, do you ask? I answer, he has left himself, and a man, a living and eternal man, is worth all the theories and all the philosophies. Other peoples have left chiefly institutions, books; we have left souls; St. Teresa is worth any institution, any Critique of Pure Reason.

0
0
2 months 1 week ago

What so impressed me on that first reading was the self-containedness of Tolkien's world. I suppose there are a few novelists who have created worlds that are uniquely their own -- Faulkner, for example, or Dickens. But since their world is fairly close to the actual world, it cannot really be called a unique creation. The only parallel that occurs to me is the Wagner Ring cycle, that one can only enter as if taking a holiday on a strange planet.

0
0
Source
source
pp. 8-9
2 months 1 week ago

Revolution is indeed a violent process. But if it is to result only in a change of dictatorship, in a shifting of names and political personalities, then it is hardly worth while. It is surely not worth all the struggle and sacrifice, the stupendous loss in human life and cultural values that result from every revolution. If such a revolution were even to bring greater social well being (which has not been the case in Russia) then it would also not be worth the terrific price paid: mere improvement can be brought about without bloody revolution.

0
0
1 month 1 week ago

Just like Chief Seattle talked about being in the web of life, in India we talk about vasudhaiva kutumbkam, which means the earth family. Indian cosmology has never separated the human from the non-human-we are a continuum.

0
0
3 months 3 weeks ago

The believers in the non-natural character of sudden conversion have had practically to admit that there is no unmistakable class-mark distinctive of all true converts. The super-normal incidents, such as voices and visions and overpowering impressions of the meaning of suddenly presented scripture texts, the melting emotions and tumultuous affections connected with the crisis of change, may all come by way of nature, or worse still, be counterfeited by Satan. The real witness of the spirit to the second birth is to be found only in the disposition of the genuine child of God, the permanently patient heart, the love of self eradicated. And this, it has to be admitted, is also found in those who pass no crisis, and may even be found outside of Christianity altogether.

0
0
Source
source
Lecture X, "Conversion, concluded"

The task of the educator is to make the child's spirit pass again where its forefathers have gone, moving rapidly through certain stages but suppressing none of them. In this regard, the history of science must be our guide.

0
0
Source
source
[Logic and intuition in the science of mathematics and in teaching], L'enseignement mathématique
3 months 2 days ago

Language forms a kind of wealth, which all can make use of at once without causing any diminution of the store, and which thus admits a complete community of enjoyment; for all, freely participating in the general treasure, unconsciously aid in its preservation.

0
0
Source
source
Volume II, p. 213
3 months 3 weeks ago

To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs.

0
0
Source
source
(uses, institutions) § 199
3 months 1 week ago

Having departed from your house, turn not back; for the furies will be your attendants.

0
0
Source
source
Symbol 15
1 month 1 week ago

The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 10: Islam, the West, and the Future
4 months 6 days ago

Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself did first show His power to subdue ignorance, by His conference with the priests and doctors of the law, before He showed His power to subdue nature by His miracles. And the coming of this Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and expressed in the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but vehicula scientiæ.

0
0

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia