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.
- Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
- Do not quote yourself.
- Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
- No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
I never read Lovecraft as being any kind of metaphor for the real world, so I wouldn't vote this up as a rationalist quote for that reason.
But I like it as a device used Lovecraft to try to convey a sheer magnitude of horror. Can you imagine discovering something so horrific you wished you could delete the whole thing from your memory ? The more you pride yourself as a rationalist, the more horrific it would have to be.