Weakly related epiphany: Hannibal Lector is the original prototype of an intelligence-in-a-box wanting to be let out, in “The Silence of the Lambs”
phaedrus
“He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.” —Goethe
“We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance”—John Archibald Wheeler
“If anyone is going to ask for a real-world example of someone who does not know how a light switch works, I can’t provide one off the top of my head, but I’d suggest looking at this, which is even more dreadful.”
Thanks RobinZ, The full quote is “Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise, and everything precise is so remote from everything that we normally think, that you cannot for a moment suppose that is what we really mean when we say what we think.”
But the partial quote is much more crisp.
“I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.”
Groucho Marx
Learned helplessness, perhaps? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
“Every conviction is a prison” ---- Nietzsche
“Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise”
Bertrand Russell, “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism” (Part of the full sentence)
- 28 May 2010 22:16 UTC; 3 points) 's comment on Rationality quotes: April 2010 by (
This reminds me of “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”—Aristotle
To me, this uses “educated” in the sense it ought to be meant.
I just realized today why they chose the name “GATTACA” for the eponymous movie.
Hi Alicorn, Thanks for the response. But if we interpret that only she is offended by it, or any nonspecified group, then I think scotherns’ examples such as
“”The touch of another person’s skin will still be wonderfully sensuous”—you can’t say that—you are discriminating against those without a sense of touch!”
also are valid. It seems to me that we have to assume that she bases her case on some sizeable homogeneous group (that gets offended). Women? - perhaps she can clarify.
“There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.”
George Bernard Shaw, “Man and Superman”
“Do you realise just how disparaging that sounds, incidentally? Because women are obviously just a homogenous bunch...”
-- The original statement is offensive to women, doesn’t that also mean that you assume that women are “just a homogenous bunch”? You seem to want to homogenise women for supporting points, but consider them heterogeneous for opposing points.
”Fine phrases are the last resource of those who have run out of arguments.”—Peter Singer
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” —Aristotle
”We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.” —Chris Mooney