Therein lies the insight: Even though you will continue moving forever—with each move taking you half the remaining distance to the wall—the total distance you travel can never be more than 2 feet, which is your starting distance from the
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“The pressure of an all-powerful totalitarian state creates an emotional tension in its citizens that determines their acts. When people are divided into "loyalists" and "criminals" a premium is placed on every type of conformist, coward, and hireling; whereas among the "criminals" one finds a singularly high percentage of people who are direct, sincere, and true to themselves. From the social point of view these persons would constitute the best guarantee that the future development of the social organism would be toward good. From the Christian point of view they have no other sin on their conscience save their contempt for Caesar, or their in correct evaluation of his might.”
― The Captive Mind
― The Captive Mind
“Curious:
At the very moment modern technology annuls all frontiers and distances
(flying, wireless, television, economic interdependance),
the most extreme nationalism is raging.”
― I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years
At the very moment modern technology annuls all frontiers and distances
(flying, wireless, television, economic interdependance),
the most extreme nationalism is raging.”
― I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years
“The temporal immortality of the soul of man, that is to say, its eternal survival also after death, is not only in no way guaranteed, but this assumption in the first place will not do for us what we always tried to make it do. Is a riddle solved by the fact that I survive forever? Is this eternal life not as enigmatic as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time.”
― Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
― Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
“The work of human thought should withstand the test of brutal, naked reality. If it cannot, it is worthless. Probably only those things are worthwhile which can preserve their validity in the eyes of a man threatened with instant death.”
― The Captive Mind
― The Captive Mind
“I know nothing that I may say can influence you," he said. "You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican Party. There is no Democratic Party. There are no Republicans nor Democrats in this House. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy. You talk verbosely in antiquated terminology of your love of liberty, and all the while you wear the scarlet livery of the Iron Heel.”
― The Iron Heel
― The Iron Heel
Albert’s 2025 Year in Books
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