All Quotes By Tag: Ideas

“I saw that there is no Nature,That Nature doesn’t exist,That there are hills, valleys, plains,That there are trees, flowers, weeds,That there are rivers and stones,But there is not a whole these belong to,That a real and true wholenessIs a sickness of our ideas.”

“Intellectuals are judged not by their morals, but by the quality of their ideas, which are rarely reducible to simple verdicts of truth or falsity, if only because banalities are by definition accurate.”

“At beyond continent of reality, there are oceans of ideas.”

“Just because an idea is true doesn’t mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“It always seems as though the definition of love will remain debatable by an opinionated world.”

“All things remarkable are surprisingly simple; albeit difficult to find.”

“The truth is sometimes a poor competitor in the market place of ideas – complicated, unsatisfying, full of dilemmas, always vulnerable to misinterpretation and abuse.”

“All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.”

“So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?’ Mr. Okamoto: ‘That’s an interesting question?’ Mr. Chiba: ‘The story with animals.’ Mr. Okamoto: ‘Yes. The story with animals is the better story.’ Pi Patel: ‘Thank you. And so it goes with God.”

“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie–deliberate, contrived and dishonest–but the myth–persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.[Commencement Address at Yale University, June 11 1962]”

“The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with joy are goodness, beauty, and truth.”

“Sleep is where we find our dreams hiding until they are found.”

“Theology is the crown of Philosophy”

“Truth, says instrumentalism, is what works out, that which does what you expect it to do. The judgment is true when you can “bank” on it and not be disappointed. If, when you predict, or when you follow the lead of your idea or plan, it brings you to the ends sought for in the beginning, your judgment is true. It does not consist in agreement of ideas, or the agreement of ideas with an outside reality; neither is it an eternal something which always is, but it is a name given to ways of thinking which get the thinker where he started. As a railroad ticket is a “true” one when it lands the passenger at the station he sought, so is an idea “true,” not when it agrees with something outside, but when it gets the thinker successfully to the end of his intellectual journey. Truth, reality, ideas and judgments are not things that stand out eternally “there,” whether in the skies above or in the earth beneath; but they are names used to characterize certain vital stages in a process which is ever going on, the process of creation, of evolution. In that process we may speak of reality, this being valuable for our purposes; again, we may speak of truth; later, of ideas; and still again, of judgments; but because we talk about them we should not delude ourselves into thinking we can handle them as something eternally existing as we handle a specimen under the glass. Such a conception of truth and reality, the instrumentalist believes, is in harmony with the general nature of progress. He fails to see how progress, genuine creation, can occur on any other theory on theories of finality, fixity, and authority; but he believes that the idea of creation which we have sketched here gives man a vote in the affairs of the universe, renders him a citizen of the world to aid in the creation of valuable objects in the nature of institutions and principles, encourages him to attempt things “unattempted yet in prose or rhyme,” inspires him to the creation of “more stately mansions,” and to the forsaking of his “low vaulted past.” He believes that the days of authority are over, whether in religion, in rulership, in science, or in philosophy; and he offers this dynamic universe as a challenge to the volition and intelligence of man, a universe to be won or lost at man’s option, a universe not to fall down before and worship as the slave before his master, the subject before his king, the scientist before his principle, the philosopher before his system, but a universe to be controlled, directed, and recreated by man’s intelligence.”

“Books can be immensely powerful. The ideas in them can change the way people think. Yet it was the Nazis and Stalin’s officers who committed terrible crimes, and not Mein Kampf or the Communist Manifesto – and of course, the Manifesto contained many key ideas that are still relevant and important today, long after Stalin has gone. There is a crucial distinction between the book and its effect – it’s crucial because if you talk about a book being harmful rather than its effect you begin to legitimise censorship. Abhorrent ideas need to be challenged by better ones, not banned.”