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Imagine us saying to children: "In the last fifty or so years, the human race has become aware of a great deal of information about its mechanisms; how it behaves, how it must behave under certain circumstances. If this is to be useful, you must learn to contemplate these rules calmly, dispassionately, disinterestedly, without emotion. It is information that will set people free from blind loyalties, obedience to slogans, rhetoric, leaders, group emotions."
Doris Lessing
January 9, 2026
The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
Alfred North Whitehead
January 8, 2026
We have two opinions: one private, which we are afraid to express; and another one - the one we use - which we force ourselves to wear to please Mrs. Grundy, until habit makes us comfortable in it, and the custom of defending it presently makes us love it, adore it, and forget how pitifully we came by it. Look at it in politics.
Mark Twain
January 7, 2026
At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
January 6, 2026
In art, progress lies not in an extension, but in a knowledge of limitations.
Georges Braque
January 5, 2026
If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
Abraham Maslow
January 4, 2026
why do they always teach us that it’s easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It’s the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage.
Ayn Rand
January 3, 2026
It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.
John Irving
January 2, 2026
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Rudyard Kipling
January 1, 2026
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
Robertson Davies
December 31, 2025
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