Laughter to begin with was probably glee at the misfortunes of others. The baring of the teeth in laughter hints at its savage ancestry. Animals have no malice, hence also no laughter. They never savor the sudden glory of Schadenfreude. It was its infectious quality that made of laughter a medium of mutuality.
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Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains.
Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains.
The inertia of the human mind and its resistance to innovation are most clearly demonstrated not, as one might expect, read more
The inertia of the human mind and its resistance to innovation are most clearly demonstrated not, as one might expect, by the ignorant mass- which is easily swayed once its imagination is caught- but by professionals with a vested interest in tradition and in the monopoly of learning. Innovation is a twofold threat to academic mediocrities: it endangers their oracular authority, and it evokes the deeper fear that their whole, laboriously constructed intellectual edifice might collapse. The academic backwoodsmen have been the curse of genius from Aristarchus to Darwin and Freud; they stretch, a solid and hostile phalanx of pedantic mediocrities, across the centuries.
All cruelty springs from weakness.
All cruelty springs from weakness.
Because they know not the forces of nature, and in order that they may have comrades in their ignorance, they read more
Because they know not the forces of nature, and in order that they may have comrades in their ignorance, they suffer not that others should search out anything, and would have us believe like rustics and ask no reason...But we ask in all things a reason must be sought.
Science itself, therefore, may be regarded as a minimal problem, consisting of the completest possible presentment of facts with the read more
Science itself, therefore, may be regarded as a minimal problem, consisting of the completest possible presentment of facts with the least possible expenditure of thought.
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.
Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.
Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other.
Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other.
