Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while.
-- Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle, 1863
I disagree with this one. Listening to yourself is not as good a way to have new insights as listening to other people.
He says,
We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor;
and concludes that the alternative is to get news by listening to yourself. Actually, newspapers and neighbors are better sources of new information than yourself; and observing the external world can be even better.
The notion is not that information "from yourself" has useful content, but that it has som...
This is our monthly thread for collecting these little gems and pearls of wisdom, rationality-related quotes you've seen recently, or had stored in your quotesfile for ages, and which might be handy to link to in one of our discussions.