Craig Talbert

“There is a disposition in human nature to reduce things as few principles as possible; and this, without doubt, adds to the beauty of a system, if the principles are able to support what rests upon them. The mathematicians glory, very justly, in having raised so noble and magnificent a system of science, upon the foundation of a few axioms and definitions. This love of simplicity, and of reducing things to few principles, hath produced many a false system; but there never was any system in which it appears so remarkably as that of Des Cartes. His whole system concerning matter and spirit is built upon one axiom, expressed in one word, cogito. Upon the foundation of conscious thought, with ideas for his materials, he builds his system of the human understanding, and attempts to account for all its phenomena: and having, as he imagined, from his consciousness, proved the existence of matter; upon the existence of matter, and of a certain quantity of motion originally impressed upon it, he builds his system of the material world, and attempts to account for all its phenomena.”
― Thomas Reid, Essays on The Active Powers of the Human Mind an Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principle of Common Sense

“Carpe diem has always been the right path. Of course there’s not much diem now for carpe, but we need not look for trouble. Let’s go.”
― Liu Cixin, Death's End

“I did not deny the fact that there was a distinction between the right and the left in the National Assembly. What I denied was that there was an eternal left, the same in various historical circumstances, inspired by the same values, united by the same aspirations.”
― Raymond Aron, Memoirs: Fifty Years of Political Reflection

“...do you really think that geniuses come from genes? Well, maybe they do. But how close have we ever got to making the most of our genes? That’s the real question. You can’t possibly give me an answer, Burris, and you know it. There has been absolutely no way of answering it until now, because it has never been possible to manipulate the environment in the required way.”
― B.F. Skinner, Walden Two