Skip to main content
1 month 3 days ago

Do not resist the evil-doer and take no part in doing so, either in the violent deeds of the administration, in the law courts, the collection of taxes, or above all in soldiering, and no one in the world will be able to enslave you.

0
0
Source
source
V. "Do not resist the evil-doer" is an allusion to the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 5:39.
3 months 1 week ago

The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this - that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.

0
0
Source
source
Aphorism 9
2 months 3 weeks ago

Often must you turn your pencil to erase, if you hope to write something worth a second reading.

0
0
Source
source
Book I, satire i, lines 72-3,
1 month 1 week ago

First, most producers are employees of firms, not owners. Viewed from the vantage point of classical economic theory, they have no reason to maximize the profits of firms, except to the extent that they can be controlled by owners. Moreover, profit-making firms, nonprofit organizations, and bureaucratic organizations all have exactly the same problem of inducing their employees to work toward organizational goals. There is no reason, a priori, why it should be easier (or harder) to produce this motivation in organizations aimed at maximizing profits than in organizations with different goals. If it is true in an organizational economy that organizations motivated by profits will be more efficient than other organizations, additional postulates will have to be introduced to account for it.

0
0
Source
source
Simon (1991) "Organizations and Markets:" in: Journal of Economic Perspectives. 5 (2 Spring 1991): p. 28.
1 week 3 days ago

Terror is not now, if it ever was, something that comes to us from outside. It is a part of the society in which we live. Both liberals and neoconservatives believe terrorism can be dealt with by removing its causes. The truth is less reassuring. Al-Qaeda has mutated into a decentralised, often locally based type of apocalyptic terrorism and, in this new guise, seems to be acquiring a formidable momentum.

0
0
Source
source
"Look out for the enemy within," The Observer
1 month 2 weeks ago

But it has been necessary, for the benefit of the social order, to convert religion into a kind of police system, and hence hell. Oriental or Greek Christianity is predominantly eschatological, Protestantism predominantly ethical, and Catholicism is a compromise between the two, although with the eschatological element predominating.

0
0
3 months 2 days ago

If He who in Himself can lack nothing chooses to need us, it is because we need to be needed.

0
0
1 week 3 days ago

There are not two kinds of human being, savage and civilized. There is only the human animal, forever at war with itself.

0
0
Source
source
An Old Chaos: Frozen Horses and Deserts of Brick (p. 25)
1 month 1 week ago

Decision making processes are aimed at finding courses of action that are feasible or satisfactory in the light of multiple goals and constraints.

0
0
Source
source
p. 274.
1 month 3 weeks ago

Greatness by nature includes a power, but not a will to power.

0
0
Source
source
p. 150
1 month 3 days ago

And so the arbitrary union of three incommensurate, mutually disconnected concepts became the basis of a bewildering theory... [by which] one of the lowest renderings of art, art for mere pleasure - against which all of the master teachers warned - was idealized as the ultimate in art.

0
0
3 months 3 days ago

In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important a function as recollecting.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 16
1 month 1 day ago

Pornography and obscenity...work by specialism and fragmentation. They deal with a figure without a ground -- situations in which the human factor is suppressed in favor of sensations and kicks.

0
0
Source
source
Letter to Clare Westcott, November 26 1975. Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 514

The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter.

0
0
Source
source
J 70 Variant translation: The fly that does not want to be swatted is safest if it sits on the fly-swat.
3 months 4 days ago

Men go to a fire for entertainment. When I see how eagerly men will run to a fire, whether in warm or in cold weather, by day or by night, dragging an engine at their heels, I'm astonished to perceive how good a purpose the level of excitement is made to serve.

0
0
Source
source
June, 1850
1 month 2 weeks ago

Newton's law is nothing but the statistics of gravitation, it has no power whatever. Let us get rid of the idea of power from law altogether. Call law tabulation of facts, expression of facts, or what you will; anything rather than suppose that it either explains or compels.

0
0
Source
source
Suggestions for Thought : Selections and Commentaries (1994), edited by Michael D. Calabria and Janet A. MacRae, p. 41
2 months 1 day ago

Government in reality, as has abundantly appeared, is a question of force, and not of consent. It is desirable that a government should be made as agreeable as possible to the ideas and inclinations of its subjects and that they should be consulted, as extensively as may be, respecting its construction and regulations. But, at last, the best constituted government that can be formed particularly for a large community, will contain many provisions that, far from having obtained the consent of all its members, encounter even in their outset a strenuous, thought ineffectual opposition.

0
0
Source
source
Book III, "Of Obedience"
3 months 5 days ago

What a pity and what a poverty of spirit, to assert that beasts are machines deprived of knowledge and sentiment, which affect all their operations in the same manner, which learn nothing, never improve, &c. [...] Some barbarians seize this dog, who so prodigiously excels man in friendship, they nail him to a table, and dissect him living, to show the mezarian veins. You discover in him all the same organs of sentiment which are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the springs of sentiment in this animal that he should not feel? Has he nerves to be incapable of suffering? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction in nature. [...] The animal has received those of sentiment, memory, and a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts, who has given these faculties? He who has made the herb of the field to grow, and who makes the earth gravitate towards the sun.

0
0
Source
source
"Beasts", in A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2, J. and H. L. Hunt, 1824, p. 9
2 months 1 day ago

The plebeian must expect to find himself neglected and despised in proportion as he is remiss in cultivation the objects of esteem; the lord will always be surrounded with sycophants and slaves. The lord therefore has no motive to industry and exertion; no stimulus to rouse him from the lethargic 'oblivious pool', out of which every human intellect originally arose.

0
0
Source
source
Book V, Chapter 10, "Of Hereditary Distinction"
3 months 3 weeks ago

Thus, where'er the drift of hazardSeems most unrestrained to flow,Chance herself is reined and bitted,And the curb of law doth know.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

0
0
Source
source
Matthew 7:20 (KJV)
3 months 3 weeks ago

I do not open up the truth to one who is not eager to get knowledge, nor help out any one who is not anxious to explain himself. When I have presented one corner of a subject to any one, and he cannot from it learn the other three, I do not repeat my lesson.

0
0
3 months 3 weeks ago

Sobriety, as opposed to inebriety and gluttony, is of admirable use in teaching men that nature is satisfied with a little, and enabling them to content themselves with simple and frugal fare.

0
0
1 month 3 weeks ago

The characteristic of the hour is that the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will. As they say in the United States: "to be different is to be indecent." The mass crushes beneath it everything that is different, everything that is excellent, individual, qualified and select. Anybody who is not like everybody, who does not think like everybody, runs the risk of being eliminated. And it is clear, of course, that this "everybody" is not "everybody." "Everybody" was normally the complex unity of the mass and the divergent, specialised minorities. Nowadays, "everybody" is the mass alone.

0
0
Source
source
Chap.I: The Coming Of The Masses
1 month 2 weeks ago

We might liken the 'two selves' to Laurel and Hardy. Ollie is the objective mind, 'you'. Stan is the subjective mind, the 'hidden you'. But Stan happens to be in control of your energy supply. So if you wake up feeling low and discouraged, you (Ollie) tend to transmit your depression to Stan, who fails to send you energy, which makes you feel lower than ever. This vicious circle is the real cause of most mental illness.

0
0
Source
source
p. 121
2 months 3 weeks ago

Do you count your birthdays with gratitude?

0
0
Source
source
Book II, epistle ii, line 210
3 months 4 days ago

The old often envy the young; when they do, they are apt to treat them cruelly.

0
0
2 months 1 day ago

Nothing could be more natural than the developement of the passions, nor more striking than the views of the human heart. What delicate struggles! and uncommonly pretty turns of thought!

0
0
Source
source
Mary: A Fiction
3 months 5 days ago

Eloquence may strike the ear, but the language of poverty strikes the heart; the first may charm like music, but the second alarms like a knell. 

0
0
Source
source
The Case of the Officers of Excise (1772), p. 20
2 months 3 weeks ago

In adversity, remember to keep an even mind.

0
0
Source
source
Book II, ode iii, line 1
3 months 4 days ago

The second matter in which Mill's principles condemn existing legislation is homosexuality. If two adults voluntarily enter into such a relation, this is a matter which concerns them only, and in which, therefore, the community ought not to intervene. If it were still believed, as it once was, that the toleration of such behavior would expose the community to the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, the community would have every right to intervene. But it does not acquire a right to intervene merely on the ground that such conduct is thought wicked. The criminal law may rightly be invoked to prevent violence or fraud inflicted upon unwilling victims, but it ought not to be invoked when whatever damage there may be is suffered only by the agents-always assuming that the agents are adults.

0
0
Source
source
p. 139
1 month 2 weeks ago

A screen bans reality.

0
0
3 months 2 days ago

Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity.

0
0
Source
source
The Human Condition (1958), part 3, chapter 16
2 months ago

...the relatively unconscious man driven by his natural impulses because, imprisoned in his familiar world, he clings to the commonplace, the obvious, the probable, the collectively valid, using for his motto: 'Thinking is difficult. Therefore, let the herd pronounce judgement.'

0
0
Source
source
Frequently misquoted as "Thinking is difficult, that's why most people judge" and close variants. Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. (1959), C.G. Jung, R.F.C. Hull (translator) (Princeton Press, 1979, ISBN 9780691018225

It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories.

0
0
Source
source
K 37
1 month 2 weeks ago

Those who devote themselves to rituals must ignore themselves. Rituals produce a distance from the self, a self-transcendence.

0
0

I say that where the public morality is concerned it may be the duty of the State to interfere with the contracts of individuals... It must then, I think, be admitted that, where health is concerned, and where morality is concerned, the State is justified in interfering with the contracts of individuals.

0
0
Source
source
Speech in the House of Commons (22 May 1846), quoted in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), p. 442
1 month 2 weeks ago

Eros conquers depression.

0
0
3 months 1 week ago

At the very beginning of my fevers and sicknesses that cast me down, whilst still entire, and but little, disordered in health, I reconcile myself to Almighty God by the last Christian, offices, and find myself by so doing less oppressed and more easy, and have got, methinks, so much the better of my disease. And I have yet less need of a notary or counsellor than of a physician.

0
0
Source
source
Ch. 9
1 month 2 weeks ago

The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realization that prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God. The quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer. Warmth of heart cannot make up for it.

0
0
Source
source
"Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God"
1 month 4 weeks ago

In the philosophy of Mach a world without matter is unthinkable. Matter in Mach's philosophy is not merely required as a test body to display properties of something already there ...it is an essential feature in causing those properties which it able to display, Inertia, for example, would not appear by the insertion of one test body in the world; in some way the presence of other matter is a necessary condition. It will be seen how welcome to such a philosophy is the theory that space and the inertial frame come into being with matter, and grow as it grows.

0
0
Source
source
Arthur Eddington, Space, Time and Gravitation
4 weeks 1 day ago

I'm not clever enough to be a physicist. When asked about why he chose to become a biologist.

0
0
Source
source
UR Samtiden - Verklighetens magi 27 October 2012.
1 month 5 days ago

To affirm equality is to affirm a cohabitation defined in part by an interdependency that takes the edge off the individual boundaries of the body, or that works that edge for its social and political potential.

0
0
Source
source
p. 148
3 months 2 days ago

The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when the world drama will end. The curtain may be rung down at any moment: say, before you have finished reading this paragraph.

0
0
3 months 1 week ago

For Christ is Joy and Sweetness to a broken heart. Christ is a Lover of poor sinners, and such a Lover that He gave Himself for us. Now if this is true, and it is true, then are we never justified by our own righteousness.

0
0
Source
source
Chapter 3, verse 20
3 months 4 days ago

Thank you for your letter and for the enclosure which I return herewith. I have been wondering whether there is any means of preventing the confusion between you and me, and I half-thought that we might write a joint letter to The Times in the following terms: Sir, To prevent the continuation of confusions which frequently occur, we beg to state that neither of us is the other. Do you think this would be a good plan?

0
0
Source
source
Letter to Lord Russell of Liverpool, February 18, 1959
1 month 3 weeks ago

If the flesh came into being because of spirit, it is a wonder. But if spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. Indeed, I am amazed at how this great wealth has made its home in this poverty.

0
0
3 months 4 days ago

Righteousness cannot be born until self-righteousness is dead.

0
0
Source
source
Justice in War-Time (1916), p. 192

CivilSimian.com created by AxiomaticPanic, CivilSimian, Kalokagathia