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.
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Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
The great questions are those an intelligent child asks and, getting no answers, stops asking.
The great questions are those an intelligent child asks and, getting no answers, stops asking.
If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for tomorrow, sleep late.
If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for tomorrow, sleep late.
Dogma does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought.
Dogma does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought.
We do not usually look for allies when we love. Indeed, we often look on those who love with us read more
We do not usually look for allies when we love. Indeed, we often look on those who love with us as rivals and trespassers. But we always look for allies when we hate.
All prayers and hopes are a reaching-out for coincidences.
All prayers and hopes are a reaching-out for coincidences.
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.
The first step in freeing yourself from social restrictions is the realization that there is no such thing as a read more
The first step in freeing yourself from social restrictions is the realization that there is no such thing as a "safe" code of conduct - one that would earn everyone's approval. Your actions can always be condemned by someone - for being too bold or too apathetic, for being too conformist or too nonconformist, for being too liberal or too conservative. So it's necessary to decide whose approval is important to you.
When you want to organize knowledge. you will be careful to base the classification upon essential qualities. You will thus read more
When you want to organize knowledge. you will be careful to base the classification upon essential qualities. You will thus derive classes in which the members have the greatest amount of resemblance to one another and the greatest amount of difference from the members of other classes. But suppose that, instead of organizing knowledge, you set out to organize ignorance and prejudice. You will then do precisely the opposite...You will keep the classification vague and flexible, so that it can be made to include just whatever individuals you choose.
