The most basic inherent constraint is that neither time nor wisdom are free goods available in unlimited quantity. This means that in social processes, as in economic processes, it is not only impossible to attain perfection but irrational to seek perfection- or even to seek the "best possible" result in each separate instance.
You May Also Like / View all maxioms
Great innovators and original thinkers and artists attract the wrath of mediocrities as lightning rods draw the flashes.
Great innovators and original thinkers and artists attract the wrath of mediocrities as lightning rods draw the flashes.
Reason's biological function is to preserve and promote life and to postpone its extinction as long as possible. Thinking and read more
Reason's biological function is to preserve and promote life and to postpone its extinction as long as possible. Thinking and acting are not contrary to nature; they are, rather, the foremost features of man's nature. The most appropriate description of man as differentiated from nonhuman beings is: a being purposively struggling against the forces adverse to his life.
The envious only hate the excellence they cannot reach.
The envious only hate the excellence they cannot reach.
To take an unequivocal stand, it seems to me, is of greater heuristic value and far more likely to stimulate read more
To take an unequivocal stand, it seems to me, is of greater heuristic value and far more likely to stimulate constructive criticism than to evade the issue.
Any young person who has studied Heidegger; or seen Ionesco's 'plays'; or listened to the 'music' of John Cage; or read more
Any young person who has studied Heidegger; or seen Ionesco's 'plays'; or listened to the 'music' of John Cage; or looked at Andy Warhol's 'paintings'- has experienced that feeling of incredulous puzzlement: But this is nonsense! Can I really be expected to take this seriously?In fact, of course, it is necessary for it to be nonsense; if it made sense, it could be evaluated. The essence of modern intellectual snobbery is the 'emperor's new cloths' approach. Teachers, critics, our self-appointed intellectual elite, make it quite clear to us that if we cannot see the superlative nature of this 'art'- why, it merely shows our ignorance, our lack of sophistication and insight. Of course, they go beyond the storybook emperor's tailors, who dressed their victim in nothing and called it fine garments. The modern tailors dress the emperor in garbage.
Habits... the only reason they persist is that they are offering some satisfaction. You allow them to persist by not read more
Habits... the only reason they persist is that they are offering some satisfaction. You allow them to persist by not seeking any other, better form of satisfying the same needs. Every habit, good or bad, is acquired and learned in the same way -- by finding that it is a means of satisfaction.
The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.
The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.
To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of read more
To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.
We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.
We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.
