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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Children sweeten labours; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the care of life; but they mitigate the remembrance read more
Children sweeten labours; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the care of life; but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity of generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men; which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed.
Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other.
Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other.
There are in fact four very different stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man read more
There are in fact four very different stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge.
We shall assume that what each man does is based not on direct and certain knowledge, but by pictures made read more
We shall assume that what each man does is based not on direct and certain knowledge, but by pictures made by himself or given to him. If his atlas tells him the world is flat he will not sail near what he believes to be the edge of our planet for fear of falling off. If his maps include a fountain of eternal youth, a Ponce de Leon will go off in quest of it. If someone digs up yellow dirt that looks like gold, he will for a time act exactly as if he has found gold. The way in which the world is imagined determines at any particular moment what men will do. It does not determine what they will achieve. It determines their effort, their feelings, their hopes, not their accomplishments and results.
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.
Reason and action are congeneric and homogenous, two aspects of the same phenomenon.
Reason and action are congeneric and homogenous, two aspects of the same phenomenon.
Propaganda...serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more read more
Propaganda...serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.
The true function of art is to...edit nature and so make it coherent and lovely. The artist is a sort read more
The true function of art is to...edit nature and so make it coherent and lovely. The artist is a sort of impassioned proofreader, blue-penciling the bad spelling of God.
He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.
He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.
