Great Quotes III: Source and Context are Key

[Mouthwash]

"Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense. This nonsense has been noisily proclaimed as immortal wisdom by mercenary followers and readily accepted as such by all fools, who thus joined into as perfect a chorus of admiration as had ever been heard before. The extensive field of spiritual influence with which Hegel was furnished by those in power has enabled him to achieve the intellectual corruption of an whole generation."

-Schopenhauer

 

[Oruc]

“Man is a beast of prey. I shall say it again and again. All the would-be moralists and social-ethics people who claim or hope to be “beyond all that” are only beasts of prey with their teeth broken, who hate others on account of the attacks which they themselves are wise enough to avoid. Only look at them. They are too weak to read a book on war, but they herd together in the street to see an accident, letting the blood and the screams play on their nerves. And if even that is too much for them, they enjoy it on the film and in the illustrated papers. ....
They shout: “No more war” — but they desire class war. They are indignant when a murderer is executed for a crime of passion, but they feel a secret pleasure in hearing of the murder of a political opponent. What objection have they ever raised to the Bolshevist slaughters? There is no getting away from it: conflict is the original fact of life, is life itself, and not the most pitiful pacifist is able entirely to uproot the pleasure it gives his inmost soul. Theoretically, at least, he would like to fight and destroy all opponents of pacifism. “

Spengler

 

[Mouthwash]

“Man is a beast of prey. I shall say it again and again. All the would-be moralists and social-ethics people who claim or hope to be “beyond all that” are only beasts of prey with their teeth broken, who hate others on account of the attacks which they themselves are wise enough to avoid. Only look at them. They are too weak to read a book on war, but they herd together in the street to see an accident, letting the blood and the screams play on their nerves. And if even that is too much for them, they enjoy it on the film and in the illustrated papers. ....
They shout: “No more war” — but they desire class war. They are indignant when a murderer is executed for a crime of passion, but they feel a secret pleasure in hearing of the murder of a political opponent. What objection have they ever raised to the Bolshevist slaughters? There is no getting away from it: conflict is the original fact of life, is life itself, and not the most pitiful pacifist is able entirely to uproot the pleasure it gives his inmost soul. Theoretically, at least, he would like to fight and destroy all opponents of pacifism. “

Spengler

Link to video.

 

[Traitorfish]

I claim exemption on the grounds that I'm quite open about my desire to devour the living flesh of all capitalists.

 

[Phrossack]

"The government are very keen on amassing statistics. They collect them, add them, raise them to the nth power; take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams. But you must never forget that every one of these figures comes in the first instance from the village watchman who puts down what he damn well pleases."

-Sir Josiah Stamp

 

[Kyriakos]

"Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense. This nonsense has been noisily proclaimed as immortal wisdom by mercenary followers and readily accepted as such by all fools, who thus joined into as perfect a chorus of admiration as had ever been heard before. The extensive field of spiritual influence with which Hegel was furnished by those in power has enabled him to achieve the intellectual corruption of an whole generation."

-Schopenhauer

I tried to read Hegel, but it was dead-boring. On the other hand i immediately liked Schopenhauer's sentences. He was misanthropic, of course, but a very intelligent person. I had posted his following phrase here at least once:

Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.

 

[Hygro]

Perhaps a bit boring to most of you but I think it's fantastic:

Now, I understand that busy people can’t keep track of everything, and even that you can sometimes be a successful money manager without reading up on monetary economics. But if you’re one of those people who don’t have time to understand the monetary debate, I have a simple piece of advice: Don’t lecture the chairman of the Fed on monetary policy.

-Paul Krugman

 

[Kyriakos]

Well indeed i don't see how that is a 'great quote'. More like a strawman-structured sound-bite?

 

[Hygro]

It's not. There's no strawman, that's the scary bit. There's a world of people who collectively have a louder voice than he despite being repeatedly thrashed by evidence—let alone theory. He's laying it out for them very clearly where the line between doing your thing and doing not your thing is.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

"The pioneer spirit is still vigorous within this nation. Science offers a largely unexplored hinterland for the pioneer who has the tools for his task. The rewards of such exploration both for the Nation and the individual are great. Scientific progress is one essential key to our security as a nation, to our better health, to more jobs, to higher standard of living, and to our cultural progress."
-Vannevar Bush, 5 July 1945 letter to Franklin Delano Roosevelt

 

[Gary Childress]

I tried to read Hegel, but it was dead-boring. On the other hand i immediately liked Schopenhauer's sentences. He was misanthropic, of course, but a very intelligent person. I had posted his following phrase here at least once:

Schopenhauer was a staunch critic of Hegel, he even tried to schedule his lectures at the same time as Hegel in order to draw students away from the "old windbag" but few if anyone signed up for Schopenhauer's classes instead of Hegel's.

The biggest thing I remember, that sticks out most prominently to me, with respect to reading ABOUT Hegel was Hegel's comment, "The real is rational". I always took that to mean that reality is rational and therefore there is progress in the synthesis of thesis and antithesis. But lately I really wonder if Schopenhauer wasn't correct when he likened human life to that of "may flies" and declared the Brain to be a secondary organ designed to help with the process of procreation.

In the famous words of existentialist Humphrey Bogart in the movie Casablanca:

"Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beings [my edit] in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that."

 

[Arakhor]

"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." ~ Thomas Paine, 1795

 

[Traitorfish]

"Books are not absolutely dead things …. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon’s teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men."

John Milton, Areopagitica

This is great because it is truthful, but also because history has rendered his high-brow Classical referencing endearingly kitschy.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I like that in that same treatise, Milton says this:

As good kill a man as kill a good book. Many a man lives a burden to the earth, but a good book is the precious blood of a master spirit treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.

It's the well-nigh misanthropic "many a man lives a burden to the earth" that I like.

 

[Kyriakos]

"The hunting dogs are still playing in the yard, but the hunted animal won't escape them- regardless if it has been running in the forest for some time now". F. Kafka.

 

[Borachio]

I am mad with love
And no one understands my plight.
Only the wounded
Understand the agonies of the wounded,
When the fire rages in the heart.
Only the jeweller knows the value of the jewel,
Not the one who lets it go.
In pain I wander from door to door,
But could not find a doctor.
Says Mira: Harken, my Master,
Mira's pain will subside
When Shyam comes as the doctor.

Mirabai

 

[Gucumatz]

I found this quote from some NAIC delegate making a play on words during the Cold War over the ignoring of native issues in the US:

"Many would cry, "Better dead than Red." And yet, another battle between the Reds and the Whites is being fought within our own borders. Given this different context it may be easier for white citizens to understand our cry which would sound more like, "Better Red than dead""

- Sandra Johnson

 

[Phrossack]

“There's no free will, says the philosopher;
To hang is most unjust.
There is no free will, assents the officer;
We hang because we must.”

-Ambrose Bierce

 

[Phrossack]

"Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles; and My Lord has a very noble castle; the greatest Baron in the province should have the best house; and as pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round; consequently, those who have asserted all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that all is for the best."

- Voltaire, Candide, Chapter 1

 

[Quintillus]

Gil Amelio, as CEO of Apple in early 1997:

"Apple is like a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water. And my job is to get the ship pointed in the right direction."