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    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.

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Evaluation and judgment are responses to what exists, sorting the things that pass before us into categories of good, bad, read more

Evaluation and judgment are responses to what exists, sorting the things that pass before us into categories of good, bad, and indifferent. But a rational life, the life of a valuer, does not consist essentially in reaction. It consists in action. Man does not find his values, like the other animals; he creates them. The primary focus of a valuer is not to take the world as it comes and pass judgment. His primary focus is to identify what might and ought to exist, to uncover potentialities that he can exploit, to find ways of reshaping the world in the image of his values.

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A man is but what he knows.

A man is but what he knows.

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We envy those whose possessions or achievements are a reflection on our own. They are our neighbors and equals. It read more

We envy those whose possessions or achievements are a reflection on our own. They are our neighbors and equals. It is they, above all who make plain the nature of our failure.

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Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again.

Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again.

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He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the read more

He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age.

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New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

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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.

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There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.

There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.

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The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.

The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.

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