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Ideals are very often formed in the effort to escape from the hard task of dealing with facts, which is read more
Ideals are very often formed in the effort to escape from the hard task of dealing with facts, which is the function of science and art. There is no process by which to reach an ideal. There are no tests by which to verify it. It is therefore impossible to frame a proposition about an ideal which can be proved or disproved. It follows that the use of ideals is to be strictly limited to proper cases, and that the attempt to use ideals in social discussion does not deserve serious consideration.
Education rears disciples, imitators, and routinists, not pioneers of new ideas and creative geniuses. The schools are not nurseries of read more
Education rears disciples, imitators, and routinists, not pioneers of new ideas and creative geniuses. The schools are not nurseries of progress and improvement, but conservatories of tradition and unvarying modes of thought.
...originality consists of the achievement of new combinations, and not of the creation of something out of nothing.
...originality consists of the achievement of new combinations, and not of the creation of something out of nothing.
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
Opposition to the truth is inevitable, especially if it takes the form of a new idea, but the degree of read more
Opposition to the truth is inevitable, especially if it takes the form of a new idea, but the degree of resistance can be diminished- by giving thought not only to the aim but to the method of approach. Avoid a frontal attack on a long established position; instead, seek to turn it by flank movement, so that a more penetrable side is exposed to the thrust of truth. But, in any such indirect approach, take care not to diverge from the truth- for nothing is more fatal to its real advancement than to lapse into untruth.
To be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority which constantly presses towards its own conquest...The greater read more
To be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority which constantly presses towards its own conquest...The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge for conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation.
Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare.
Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare.
Men never do evil so fully and so happily as when they do it for conscience's sake.
Men never do evil so fully and so happily as when they do it for conscience's sake.
The human understanding, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree of order and regularity in things than it read more
The human understanding, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree of order and regularity in things than it really finds.
