John Farndon > Quotes

“Books can be immensely powerful. The ideas in them can change the way people think. Yet it was the Nazis and Stalin's officers who committed terrible crimes, and not Mein Kampf or the Communist Manifesto - and of course, the Manifesto contained many key ideas that are still relevant and important today, long after Stalin has gone. There is a crucial distinction between the book and its effect - it's crucial because if you talk about a book being harmful rather than its effect you begin to legitimise censorship. Abhorrent ideas need to be challenged by better ones, not banned.”
― John Farndon, Do You Think You're Clever?: The Oxford and Cambridge Questions

“It's this oppressive, aggressive and exclusice side to cool that makes me declare ardently, no I'm not cool. I rebel against the notion of a standard or style or attitude that oppresses those that don't fit in- that excludes and diminishes the vulnerable, the shy, the uninformed and the uncofident. I rebel, too, against the dominance of a set of values which seems so geared towards the superficial and ephemeral. And I rebel against the idea of being cool if it means being detatched, distant, univolved, dismissive, unresponsive, lacking in emotional honesty- in fact, lacking in all the things that make the world a happier, more sympathetic place.”
― John Farndon, Do You Think You're Clever?: The Oxford and Cambridge Questions

“Cleverness can be captivating, both for those who dole it out and those who witness it. Sometimes a dazzling display of erudition and wit can be as entertaining and uplifting as a great piece of music.”
― John Farndon, Do You Think You're Clever?: The Oxford and Cambridge Questions

“The mistake, Wittgenstein argued, is in thinking philosophy can answer these questions. It comes partly from a flawed view of language that insists that if a word has meaning, there must be a thing attached to that meaning. The philosopher asks, ‘What is reality?’, ‘What is justice?’ or ‘What is the mind?’ and then goes looking with logic for the identity of that thing – and of course can’t find it, because they are just words.”
― John Farndon, So, You Think You're Clever?: Taking on The Oxford and Cambridge Questions

“All substances are poisons; there is none which is not.”
― John Farndon, So, You Think You're Clever?: Taking on The Oxford and Cambridge Questions

“Philosophers, Wittgenstein said, had made the mistake of being like scientists chasing the meaning behind things – truth, mind, time, justice, reality – when none of this really matters, or is even achievable. A philosopher might waste his time wondering how he knew the child with the cut knee screaming her head off was really in pain, while the mother would rush in with comfort and bandages. The philosopher was clearly the one with lessons to learn.”
― John Farndon, So, You Think You're Clever?: Taking on The Oxford and Cambridge Questions

“They are, mostly, sane people who are telling their story truthfully.”
― John Farndon, So, You Think You're Clever?: Taking on The Oxford and Cambridge Questions

“Life is a wonderful, precious thing – a tiny realm of order in the vast chaos of the unliving universe around – and all living things need protection. A cell has its cytoplasm. Fish have their scales. Humans have skin. Bark is a tree’s.”
― John Farndon, So, You Think You're Clever?: Taking on The Oxford and Cambridge Questions

“People need change now, today. Even one more child dying from hunger, one more life blighted by poverty, is one too many.”
― John Farndon, So, You Think You're Clever?: Taking on The Oxford and Cambridge Questions

“History is littered with rulers and their rivals brought down by poison.”
― John Farndon, So, You Think You're Clever?: Taking on The Oxford and Cambridge Questions

“A country cannot afford to ignore its poor and disadvantaged. Common humanity means that we should not.”
― John Farndon, The World's Greatest Idea: The Fifty Greatest Ideas That Have Changed Humanity

“Nature abhors a vacuum’.”
― John Farndon, So, You Think You're Clever?: Taking on The Oxford and Cambridge Questions