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.
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It is perhaps not entirely so, though it has often been said, that man makes his God in his own read more
It is perhaps not entirely so, though it has often been said, that man makes his God in his own image. Rather does he create Him in the image of his cravings and dreams- in the image of what man wants to be. God making could be part of the process by which a society realizes its aspirations: it first embodies them in the conception of a particular God, and then proceeds to imitate that God. The confidence requisite for attempting the unprecedented is most effectively generated by the fiction that in realizing the new we are imitating rather than originating. Our preoccupation with heaven can be part of an effort to find precedents for the unprecedented.
Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.
Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.
Do not trust your memory; it is a net full of holes; the most beautiful prizes slip through it. - read more
Do not trust your memory; it is a net full of holes; the most beautiful prizes slip through it. - The Heart's Domain.
Knowledge can be enormously costly, and is often scattered in widely uneven fragments, too small to be individually usable in read more
Knowledge can be enormously costly, and is often scattered in widely uneven fragments, too small to be individually usable in decision making. The communication and coordination of these scattered fragments of knowledge is one of the basic problems- perhaps the basic problem- of any society.
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.
It is a juvenile notion that a society needs a lofty purpose and a shining vision to achieve much. Both read more
It is a juvenile notion that a society needs a lofty purpose and a shining vision to achieve much. Both in the marketplace and on the battlefield men who set their hearts on toys have often displayed unequal initiative and drive. And one must be ignorant of the creative process to look for a close correspondence between motive and achievement in the world of thought and imagination.
...there is no alienation that a little power will not cure.
...there is no alienation that a little power will not cure.
A great man is he who has not lost the heart of a child.
A great man is he who has not lost the heart of a child.
In a mad world, only the mad are sane.
In a mad world, only the mad are sane.
