The continuous disasters of man's history are mainly due to his excessive capacity and urge to become identified with a tribe, nation, church or cause, and to espouse its credo uncritically and enthusiastically, even if its tenets are contrary to reason, devoid of self-interest and detrimental to the claims of self-preservation.We are thus driven to the unfashionable conclusion that the trouble with our species is not an excess of aggression, but an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.
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There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
The highest stage in moral culture at which we can arrive is when we recognize that we ought to control read more
The highest stage in moral culture at which we can arrive is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.
There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.
People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.
People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of read more
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.
Power concedes nothing without a demand.
Power concedes nothing without a demand.
Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to read more
Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.
Every fairly intelligent person is aware that the price of respectability is a muffled soul bent on the trivial and read more
Every fairly intelligent person is aware that the price of respectability is a muffled soul bent on the trivial and the mediocre.
Science does not give us absolute and final certainty. It only gives us assurance within the limits of our mental read more
Science does not give us absolute and final certainty. It only gives us assurance within the limits of our mental abilities and the prevailing state of scientific thought.
