Joe Edwards > Joe Edwards's Quotes

“A theory that explains everything, explains nothing”
― Karl Popper

“The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.

Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.”
― Karl Raimund Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies

“Theories are nets cast to catch what we call 'the world': to rationalize, to explain, and to master it. We endeavor to make the mesh ever finer and finer.”
― Karl Popper

“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.”
― Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge

“It's easy to be a naive idealist. It's easy to be a cynical realist. It's quite another thing to have no illusions and still hold the inner flame.”
― Marie-Louise von Franz

“If you try and lose then it isn't your fault. But if you don't try and we lose, then it's all your fault.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.”
― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“A man can't soar too high, when he flies with his own wings.”
― William Blake

“Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.”
― William Blake

“The weak in courage is strong in cunning.”
― William Blake

“He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.”
― William Blake

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. ”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. "One word of truth outweighs the world.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

“One man who stopped lying could bring down a tyranny.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

“We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Thus it is that no cruelty whatsoever passes by without impact. Thus it is that we always pay dearly for chasing after what is cheap.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”
― Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Vol. 3: American Statesmen

“Never explain―your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.”
― Elbert Hubbard

“Do you take pride in your hurt?' Samuel asked. 'Does it make you seem large and tragic? . . . Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience . . . there's all that fallow land, and here beside me is all that fallow man. It seems a waste. And I have a bad feeling about waste because I could never afford it. Is it a good feeling to let your life lie fallow?”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“The body is the instrument of our hold on the world.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“There is no such thing as a natural death: nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question. All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, A Very Easy Death

“Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.”
― Karl Popper

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”
― Jack Kerouac

“All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.”
― Jack Kerouac

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
― Albert Einstein