You May Also Like / View all maxioms
To illustrate the difference between the innovator and the dull crowd of routinists who cannot even imagine that any improvement read more
To illustrate the difference between the innovator and the dull crowd of routinists who cannot even imagine that any improvement is possible, we need only refer to a passage in Engel's most famous book. Here, in 1878, Engels apodictically announced that military weapons are "now so perfected that no further progress of any revolutionizing influence is any longer possible." Henceforth "all further [technological] progress is by and large indifferent for land warfare. The age of evolution is in this regard essentially closed." This complacent conclusion shows in what the achievement of the innovator consists: he accomplishes what other people believe to be unthinkable and unfeasible.
...we are entitled to make almost any reasonable assumption, but should resist making conclusions until evidence requires that we do read more
...we are entitled to make almost any reasonable assumption, but should resist making conclusions until evidence requires that we do so.
We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.
We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.
A fool hath no dialogue within himself, the first thought carrieth him without the reply of a second.
A fool hath no dialogue within himself, the first thought carrieth him without the reply of a second.
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.
The natural inclination of a child is to take pleasure in the use of the mind no less than of read more
The natural inclination of a child is to take pleasure in the use of the mind no less than of the body. The child's primary business is learning. It is also the primary entertainment. To retain that orientation into adulthood, so that consciousness is not a burden but a joy, is the mark of the successfully developed human being.
There is an accumulative cruelty in a number of men, though none in particular are ill-natured.
There is an accumulative cruelty in a number of men, though none in particular are ill-natured.
It is important that man dreams, but it is perhaps equally important that he can laugh at his own dreams.
It is important that man dreams, but it is perhaps equally important that he can laugh at his own dreams.
A man's soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted read more
A man's soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted into something specific.
