- Pierre (Peter) Abelard
- • Logic has made me hated by the world.
- • Language is generated by the intellect and
generates the intellect.
Abelard
of Le Pallet, introduction
- John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron
Acton (1834 - 1902)
- • That passion for equality makes vain the hope
of freedom [1877]
• The danger is not that a particular class is
unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. [1881]
Alexander Aleksandrovich Alekhine, Russian-French chess player (1892 – 1946)
World Chess Champion: 1927–1935 and 1937–1946- I never beat a wholely fit opponent.
[See also from the chess world : Botvinnik, Capablanca, Fischer]
- Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274)
- "[...] and insofar as it [human law] deviates from right reason it is called unjust law; in such cases it is no law at all but rather a species of violence.
Summa theologiae, Ia-Ilae, q. xciii, art. 3, ad 2m.
Ends and means and the individual
Aristotle
- • There is nothing in the intellect that was not before
in the senses
nihil in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu
The Turing
test and intelligence [5]
• We make war that we may live in peace.
James M. Barrie (1860–1937)- The life of every man is a diary in which he means
to write one story, and writes another.
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832)- “The greatest happiness of the greatest number
is the foundation of morals and legislation.”
Fascism
is socialism [2]
- Benedict of Nursia [Lat.], or Norcia [It.] (1090 – 20 August 1153)
- “Let him [the abbot] so temper all things that
the strong may have something to strive for and the
weak have nothing to dismay them.”
“IF A BROTHER IS COMMANDED TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE
If it happens that orders are given to a brother which
are too heavy or impossible, let him receive the order
of his superior with perfect gentleness and obedience.
But if he finds that the weight of the burden is altogether
beyond his strength to fulfil, then let him explain
to his superior the reasons why he cannot do
it, patiently at a suitable time, without showing
any pride or resistance or contradiction. Then, after
his representations, if the superior remains firm in
requiring what he has ordered, let the subject realise
that it is better so, and out of charity, trusting
in the help of God, let him obey.”
[The rule
of Saint Benedict for monasteries]
-
- Bernard of Clairvaux, to
Abelard
- You will find something more in the woods
than in books. Woods and stones will teach you what
you cannot hear from the ‘masters’
“Logic
has made me hated among men”: Abelard of Le Pallet
on theology [8]
Bernard of Chartres [d. circa 1130]
- We are like dwarfs on the shoulders
of giants, so that we can see more than they,
and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any
sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction,
but because we are carried high and raised up
by their giant size.
The Turing
test and intelligence [1]
Clint Black (1962
- )
- You can wave your signs in protest
against America taking stands.
The stands America’s taken
are the reason that you can.
[From Iraq
and roll]
-
- Robert
Bolt, Man for All Seasons [play first performed in 1954]
- When a man takes an oath, Meg, he’s holding
his ownself in his own hands. Like water. And if he
opens his fingers then – he needn’t hope
to find himself again.
—
Margaret: “Father, the man is bad.”
More: “There’s no law against that.”
Roper: “There is a law against it. God’s
law.”
More: “Then God can arrest him.”
Roper: “Sophistication upon sophistication!”
More: “No. Sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the
law. I know what’s legal, but I don't always know
what’s right. And I'm sticking with what’s
legal.
Roper: “Then you set man’s law against God’s?”
More: “No. Far below. But let me draw your attention
to a fact. I am not God. The currents and eddies of
right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing,
I can't navigate. I'm no voyager. But in the thickets
of the law, there I am a forester. I doubt if there’s
a man alive who could follow me there, thank God.”
Alice: “While you talk, he is gone.”
More: “And go he should, if he was the Devil himself,
until he broke the law.”
Roper: “So now you'd give the Devil the benefit
of law!”
More: “Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road
through the law to get to the Devil?”
Roper: “I'd cut down every law in England to do
that!”
More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and
the Devil turned round on you -- where would you hide,
Roper, the laws all being flat. This country’s
planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- man’s
laws, not God’s -- and if you cut them down --
and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think
you could stand upright in the winds that would blow
then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of the law, for
my own safety’s sake.”
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik- I only think well when my mind is calm
why
Aristotelian logic does not work [6]
[See also from the chess world : Alekhine, Capablanca, Fischer]
Edmund Burke (1729 –
1797) [attributed]- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that
good people do nothing
-
D. Buss
- the romantic fallacy: "I don't want people to be like
that, therefore they are not like that.
quote from Limbic
- José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera, Cuban chess player (1888 – 1942)
World Chess Champion 1921 – 1927
- The good player is always lucky.
[See also from the chess world : Alekhine, Botvinnik, Fischer]
Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge
Dodgson) 1832–98
English writer and logician- “There’s glory for you!”
“ I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory’,”
Alice said.
“I meant, ‘there’s a nice knock-down
argument for you!’ ”
“ ‘But‘glory’ doesn’t
mean‘there’s a nice knock-down argument’”,
Alice objected.
“ When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said
in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what
I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether
you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which
is to be master—that’s all.”
Through
the Looking-Glass (1872), chapter 6
- G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
- In The laughing prophet:
the seven virtues and G. K. Chesterton [Methuen,
1937], Emile Cammaerts [1878-1953] merged the following
two quotes:
- “It’s drowning all your old rationalism
and scepticism, it’s coming in like a sea; and
the name of it is superstition. … It's the first
effect of not believing in God that you lose your common
sense.” [The Oracle of the Dog, 1923,
in The Incredulity of Father Brown] [1]
- and
- “You all swore you were hard-shelled materialists;
and as a matter of fact you were all balanced on the
very edge of belief - of belief in almost anything.”
[The Miracle of Moon Crescent, 1924, in The Incredulity of Father Brown] [2]
- into the paraphrase of the G.K.
Chesterton quotes above:
- “The first effect of not believing in God is to
believe in anything.”
- Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)
- The mood and temper of the public in regard to the
treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most
unfailing tests of the civilisation
of any country.
[1910]
M.T.
Clanchy’s book opens: - Peter Abelard, now forgotten, was once the most famous
man in the world.
Jean Baptiste Colvert [finance
minister of Louis XIV, 16th - 17th century; on taxation]- The objective is to pluck the geese in such a manner
as to obtain the greatest number of feathers with the
least amount of hissing
see Why
governments so love inflation in The mechanics
of inflation: the great government swindle and how it
works
- John Philpot Curran [Irish lawyer and statesman, 1750-1817]
- The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal
vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the
consequence
of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.".
[Speech upon the Right of Election for Lord Mayor of Dublin, 1790]
Thomas Alva Edison (1847
– 1931)- Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration’
Said circa 1903, in Harper’s
Monthly Magazine, September 1932 (Source: Oxford
Dictionary of Quotations). However, I think Nesbitt,
a popular Victorian writer on self improvement, pre-dates
this.
- Abba Eban, 1970
- History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
From Conduct of Life: A Philosophical Reading
- Dorothy Fields, lyricist (1905 – 1974)
- Pick yourself up, dust yourself down and start all
over again
[From
a song with music by Jerome Kern, 1936]
Drugs, smoking
and addiction [3]
Bobby Fischer [Robert James Fischer], American chess player (1943–2008)
World Chess Champion 1972-1975
- I don't believe in psychology, I believe in good moves.
[See also from the chess world : Alekhine, Botvinnik, Capablanca]
- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790 )
- They that can give up essential liberty to obtain
a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety.
See http://www.futureofthebook.com/stories/storyReader$605
[Pennsylvania
Assembly: Reply to the Governor, Tue, Nov 11, 1755]
-
Fridugisus, 9th century- This nothing is a very important something, since
it is that out of which god created everything’.
why
Aristotelian logic does not work [18]
- Milton Friedman
- Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.
Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed
without
legislation.
-
Etienne Gilson [1884 - 1978], Being and Some Philosophers, p. 52
- Religion has its own work, which is to educate people
who are too dull to understand philosophy, or too untutored
to be amenable to its teaching. This is why religion
is necessary, for what it preaches is fundamentally
the same as what philosophy teaches, and, unless common
men believed what it preaches, they would behave like
beasts. But theologians should preach, not teach, just
as philosophers should teach, not preach. Theologians
should not attempt to demonstrate, because they cannot
do it, and philosophers must be careful not to get belief
mixed up with what they prove, because then they can
no longer prove anything. Now, to preach creation is
just a handy way to make people feel that God is their
Master, which is true even though, as is well known
by those who truly philosophize, nothing of the sort
ever happened.
- Garrett James Hardin (1915
- 2003)
- Ecology is the overall science of which economics
is a minor speciality
Source:
Hardin obituary on this page.
Hardin
website
- Heloise
- • The name of mistress instead of wife would
be dearer and more honourable for me, only love given
freely, rather than the constriction of the marriage
tie, is of significance to an ideal relationship.
• God is my witness that if Augustus, emperor
of the whole world, thought fit to honour me with marriage
and conferred all the earth upon me to possess for ever,
it would be dearer and more honourable to me to be called
not his empress but your whore.
Abelard
of Le Pallet, introduction
Heraclitus
- You cannot step into the same river twice
why
Aristotelian logic does not work
-
Adolph Hitler
- • What luck for the rulers that men do not think
The
psychology and development of Adolph Hitler Schicklgruber
• There are many more
quotations taken from Hitler’s writing and speeches
collected together at Did
Hitler know about the holocaust? A psychological assessment.
Thomas Hobbes- During the time men live without a common power to
keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which
is called war; and such a war as is of every man against
every man.”
Power, ownership
and freedom [8]
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)- • All men are created equal” Why
Aristotelian logic does not work
• The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time
to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is
its natural manure.[1787]
Kelvin- Science begins when you can measure what you are talking
about and express it in numbers
why
Aristotelian logic does not work [21]
|
