"To know what question one should, reasonably, ask is already a great and necessary proof of one’s sagacity and insight. For if the question is in itself absurd and demands answers that are unnecessary, then it not only embarrasses the person raising it, but sometimes has the further disadvantage of misleading the incautious listener: it may prompt him to give absurd answers and to provide us with the ridiculous spectacle where (as the ancients said) one person milks the ram while the other holds a sieve underneath."
Is it bad that I called it once the second sentence started wearing on and on and on ...?
I wanted to be sneaky and fool people into up-voting something they agreed with, but eventually I couldn't resist collecting together these amazing Dark Arts quotes. It's almost unbelievable that this guy, unlike most masters of the Dark Arts, told anybody who cared to read his work exactly what he was doing - and it didn't matter. Just as he probably would have said that it wouldn't matter.
I doubt that a political candidate could run for office in any country with internet if he/she had written things like this. Maybe the press really is doing a better job of being substantive.
Suggestion: Downvote this if you either A) think people should not be exposed to how the Dark Arts work, or B) believe most of these statements are false. Upvote it if you think most of these statements are true.
...The broad masses of a nation are not made up of professors and diplomats. Since these masses have only a poor acquaintance with abstract ideas, their reactions lie more in the domain of the feelings, where the roots of their positive as well as their negative attitudes are implanted. They are susceptible only to a manifestation of strength which comes definitely either from the positive or nega
Related to atucker's, but I had thought of posting it independently:
...This sentiment [that evil is unreal and the universe is perfect], which as much as any other deserves the name of pantheism, is often expressed incoherently and with a false afflatus; but when rationally conceived, as it was by Spinoza, it amounts to this: that good and evil are relations which things bear to the living beings they affect. In itself nothing—much less this whole mixed universe —can be either good or bad; but the universe wears the aspect of a good in so far as it feeds, d
...Nothing regarded in its own nature can be called perfect or imperfect; especially when we are aware that all things which come to pass, come to pass according to the eternal order and fixed laws of nature. However, human weakness cannot attain to this order in its own thoughts, but meanwhile man conceives a human character much more stable than his own, and sees that there is no reason why he should not himself acquire such a character....
This, then, is the end for which I strive, to attain to such a character myself, and to endeavor that many should atta
And finally the moment came when I pushed aside what I had done and started to begin again with the announcement that Jupiter himself had never existed; that man was alone in a world in which no voices were heard than his own, a world neither friendly nor unfriendly save he made it so…
How terrifying and glorious the role of man if, indeed, without guidance and without consolation he must create from his own vitals the meaning for his existence and write the rules whereby he lives.
He does. Less Wrong has adopted a general policy of never mentioning his name, because we don't particularly want him to show up here.
Please be careful not to give away people's sources in your replies. http://rot13.com/ is your friend.
Please be careful not to give away people's sources in your replies. http://rot13.com/ is your friend.
Reading is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Its chief purpose is to help towards filling in the framework which is made up of the talents and capabilities that each individual possesses... The material which one has acquired through reading must not be stored up in the memory on a plan that corresponds to the successive chapters of the book; but each little piece of knowledge thus gained must be treated as if it were a little stone to be inserted into a mosaic, so that it finds its proper place among all the other pieces and particles that hel...
I thought that the conclusion was an applause light, but didn't consciously mind "holy", at least, the end was sufficiently bad that I didn't feel the need to parse the beginning for problems.
I had the same reaction as lessdazed. "Love is pretty much the only law" isn't a coherent proposition, it's designed to sound nice, but it gives no indication that there's an idea for a sensible societal arrangement behind it.
This thread has an experimental format for posting rationality quotes. Here is the format:
For those posting quotes:
Post the quote as usual, but not the author, original language translated from, or other information. That information is to be input after the quote according to the following format:
[Source](http://linkgoes.here "hovertext goes here")
For example:
>When an idea is wanting, a word can always be found to take its place.
[Source](http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/30216.html "Goethe, translated.")
The source information will be available by hovering the mouse over "Source", without opening a new page. This format allows quotations to be evaluated with less context available, with all that entails. I hope this allays some of the uncertainty regarding why words of the Bible or authors such as Nietzsche are sometimes poorly received. People are encouraged to vote without considering the source information. If locally idolized people said genuinely silly things even considering the context, feel free to post those as well, but please use your best judgement as to whether or not taking it out of context is fair to the speaker.
Please use your own judgement in deciding which quotes thread to post material. This isn't intended to compete with the main thread, it's an experiment to see if people like a different format better. Some people thought this format, or something like it, should simply be tried on the next regular quotes thread to minimize any disruption caused by having multiple threads, while others thought disruption wold be minimized by having a separate thread and leaving the main thread as normal. This is what I decided to do.
The usual rules apply, except that there is no fixed limit to the number of quotes one may submit, because I'd like to populate this thread without taking too much from the usual thread.