There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous, which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They asked to be deceived.
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We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his read more
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
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.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
The ideas which now pass for brilliant innovations and advances are in fact mere revivals of ancient errors, and a read more
The ideas which now pass for brilliant innovations and advances are in fact mere revivals of ancient errors, and a further proof of the dictum that those who are ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Perhaps even these things, one day, will be pleasing to remember. - Aenid.
Perhaps even these things, one day, will be pleasing to remember. - Aenid.
The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is to convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned read more
The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is to convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned against are indeed depraved creatures, deserving every punishment, even extermination. We cannot pity those we have wronged, nor can we be indifferent toward them. We must hate and persecute them or else leave the door open to self-contempt.
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.
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.
