A collection of quotes that interested me in my readings;
"The many, the most vulgar, would seem to conceive the good and happiness as pleasure, and hence they also like the life of gratification. Here the appear completely slavish, since the life they decide on is a life for grazing animals."
"The many, the most vulgar, would seem to conceive the good and happiness as pleasure, and hence they also like the life of gratification. Here the appear completely slavish, since the life they decide on is a life for grazing animals."
~ Aristotle (Selections, pg 351)
“A true war story is never moral”
~ Tim O' Brian (How to Tell a True War Story, pg 440)
"Philosophy is the battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language"
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations 109)
"Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate."
~ Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
"When we expose ourselves to favorable facts, notice and remember favorable facts, and hold favorable facts to a fairly low standard of proof, we are generally no more aware of our subterfuge..."
"The process by which we generate positive views are many: we pay more attention to favorable information, we surround ourselves with those who provide it, and we accept it uncritically."
~ Gilbert, Daniel. "Immune to Reality." Stumbling on Happiness. New York: Knopf, 2006
(found in Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric, 2006, pg 75)
(reference: Erving, Goffman. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life)
"A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that is unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push it."
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein (Culture and Value, p. 42)
"Is not this the most reprehensible form of ignorance, that of thinking one knows what one does not know?"
~ Socrates (Plato, Apology 29b)
''It is, therefore, to the interest of all the confederates of abuse to give the most extensive currency to fallacies ... It is of the utmost importance to such persons to keep the human mind in such a state of imbecility that shall render it incapable of distinguishing truth from error"
~ Jeremy Bentham. "The Handbook of Political Fallacies" (found in Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric, 2006, pg 75)
"The need to be in the swim, to talk "intelligently" about topics of the day, leads us to form and broadcast these quick opinions based on superficial evidence. And once we have pronounced them, the need to avoid appearing to have been wrong in public leads us to hang onto those beliefs, often in the face of conflicting evidence. The underlying psychological mechanism is the desire to gain, and retain, the status in the eyes of othes in our group that is vital to success in everyday life."
Thomas Kahane & Naney Cavender. "Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric", 2006, pg 121(reference: Erving, Goffman. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life)
"You have the right to work only, but not for the results of work. Do not let your motivation for action be influenced by reward, and do not become attached to inaction."
~ Bhagawad Gita
Man's ability to fabricate evidence is matched only by his ability to ignore it.
~ Philosophy_Muse, http://bit.ly/1lB6vUT
