Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
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I think I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.
I think I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.
Cultures contain many cues and inducements to dissuade the individual from approaching ultimate limits, in much the same way that read more
Cultures contain many cues and inducements to dissuade the individual from approaching ultimate limits, in much the same way that a special warning strip of land around the edge of a baseball field lets a player know that he is about to run into a concrete wall when he is preoccupied with catching the ball. The wider that strip of land and the more sensitive the player is to the changing composition of the ground under his feet as he pursues the ball, the more effective the warning. Romanticizing or lionizing as "individualistic" those people who disregard social cues and inducements increases the danger of head-on collisions with inherent social limits. Decrying various forms of social disapproval is in effect narrowing the warning strip.
Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, read more
Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, and to demonstrate that they, too, are significant.
Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the read more
Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.
A system in which the two great commandments were, to hate your
neighbour and to love your neighbour's wife.
A system in which the two great commandments were, to hate your
neighbour and to love your neighbour's wife.
No one in this world, so far as I know- and I have researched the records for years, and employed read more
No one in this world, so far as I know- and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me- has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.
Modern man lives isolated in his artificial environment, not because the artificial is evil as such, but because of his read more
Modern man lives isolated in his artificial environment, not because the artificial is evil as such, but because of his lack of comprehension of the forces which make it work- of the principles which relate his gadgets to the forces of nature, to the universal order. It is not central heating which makes his existence 'unnatural,' but his refusal to take an interest in the principles behind it. By being entirely dependent on science, yet closing his mind to it, he leads the life of an urban barbarian.
I live in the crowds of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as
to shun myself.
I live in the crowds of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as
to shun myself.
