People do not cooperate under the division of labor because they love or should love one another. They cooperate because this best serves their own interests. Neither love nor charity nor any other sympathetic sentiments but rightly understood selfishness is what originally impelled man to adjust himself to the requirements of society, to respect the rights and freedoms of his fellow men and to substitute peaceful collaboration for enmity and conflict.
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Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something read more
Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something we already have. It is a search for a final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed the one and only truth. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others.
Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.
Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.
The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, read more
The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, ''Keep tomorrow dark,'' and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) ''Cheat the Prophet.'' The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. Then they go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.
Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow if tomorrow might improve the odds.
Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow if tomorrow might improve the odds.
The collective matrix of a science at a given time is determined by a kind of establishment, which includes universities, read more
The collective matrix of a science at a given time is determined by a kind of establishment, which includes universities, learned societies, and, more recently, the editorial offices of technical journals. Like other establishments, they are consciously or unconsciously bent on preserving the status quo- partly because unorthodox innovations are a threat to their authority, but also because of the deeper fear that their laboriously erected an intellectual edifice might collapse under the impact.
...mammalian embryos, regardless of their sex chromosome constitutions, have an inherent tendency to develop the female phenotype; the mammalian male read more
...mammalian embryos, regardless of their sex chromosome constitutions, have an inherent tendency to develop the female phenotype; the mammalian male is essentially a female that has been exposed to androgenic steroid hormones.
Widespread caffeine use explains a lot about the twentieth century.
Widespread caffeine use explains a lot about the twentieth century.
But the development of human society does not go straight forward; and the epic process will therefore be a recurring read more
But the development of human society does not go straight forward; and the epic process will therefore be a recurring process, the series a recurring series - though not in exact repetition .
It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have "something worth fighting for," they do not feel read more
It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have "something worth fighting for," they do not feel like fighting.
