The continuous disasters of man's history are mainly due to his excessive capacity and urge to become identified with a tribe, nation, church or cause, and to espouse its credo uncritically and enthusiastically, even if its tenets are contrary to reason, devoid of self-interest and detrimental to the claims of self-preservation.We are thus driven to the unfashionable conclusion that the trouble with our species is not an excess of aggression, but an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.
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Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.
Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.
Action based on reason, action therefore which is only to be understood by reason, knows only one end, the greatest read more
Action based on reason, action therefore which is only to be understood by reason, knows only one end, the greatest pleasure of the acting individual.
You've got to watch your mind all the time or you'll awaken and find a strange picture on your press.
You've got to watch your mind all the time or you'll awaken and find a strange picture on your press.
No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.
No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.
The revolutions of thought which shape the basic outlook of an age are not disseminated through text-books- they spread like read more
The revolutions of thought which shape the basic outlook of an age are not disseminated through text-books- they spread like epidemics, through contamination by invisible agents and innocent germ carriers, by the most varied forms of contact, or simply by breathing the common air.
But it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
But it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
The question that faces every man born into this world is not what should be his purpose, which he should read more
The question that faces every man born into this world is not what should be his purpose, which he should set about to achieve, but just what to do with life? The answer, that he should order his life so that he can find the greatest happiness in it, is more a practical question, similar to that of how a man should spend his weekend, then a metaphysical proposition as to what is the mystic purpose of his life in the scheme of the universe.
Unity and self-sacrifice, of themselves, even when fostered by the most noble means, produce a facility for hating. Even when read more
Unity and self-sacrifice, of themselves, even when fostered by the most noble means, produce a facility for hating. Even when men league themselves mightily together to promote tolerance and peace on earth, they are likely to be violently intolerant toward those not of a like mind.
He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the read more
He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age.
