Week 2023-38: Mahatma Gandhi - Collected Quotes

"A living faith cannot be manufactured by the rule of majority." (Mahatma Gandhi, "India on Trial" 1922)

"The most practical, the most dignified way of going on in the world is to take people at their word, when you have no positive reason to the contrary." (Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 1924)

"True art takes note not merely of form but also of what lies behind." (Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 1924)

"Without devotion, action and knowledge are cold and dry and many even become shackles." (Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 1930)

"Democracy is a great institution and, therefore, it is liable to be greatly abused." (Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 1931)

"Dignity of human nature requires that we must face the storms of life." (Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 1931)

"Reason has to be strengthened by suffering, and suffering opens the eyes of understanding." (Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 1931)

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." (Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 1931)

"Much that we hug today as knowledge is ignorance pure and simple. It makes the mind wander and even reduces it to a vacuity." (Mahatma Gandhi, "The Gandhi Sutras", 1949)

"Religion is one tree with many branches. As branches, you may say, religions are many, but as a tree, religion is only one." (Mahatma Gandhi, "None High: None Low", 1965)

"Prayer is a sign of repentance, a desire to become better, purer." (Mahatma Gandhi, "The Supreme power", 1963)

"Belief in non-violence is based on the assumption that human nature in the essence is one and therefore unfailingly responds to the advances of love..." (Mahatma Gandhi)

"There is an indefinable mysterious Power that pervades everything." (Mahatma Gandhi)

"You cannot stop big wars if you carry on little wars yourselves." (Mahatma Gandhi)

Week 2023-37: Henri-Frédéric Amiel - Collected Quotes

"An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1852)

"Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1852)

"The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1856)

"To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching. To attain it we must be able to guess what will interest." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, 1864)

"Nature does at least what she can to translate into visible form the wealth of the creative formula. By the vastness of the abysses into which she penetrates, in the effort - the unsuccessful effort - to house and contain the eternal thought, we may measure the greatness of the divine mind." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1866)

"What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1868)

"Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1875)

"Everything which is, is thought, but not conscious and individual thought. The human intelligence is but the consciousness of being. It is what I have formulated before: Everything is a symbol of a symbol, and a symbol of what? of mind." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, 1882)

""Time is but the measure of the difficulty of a conception. Pure thought has scarcely any need of time, since it perceives the two ends of an idea almost at the same moment." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, 1883)

"Time is but the space between our memories; as soon as we cease to perceive this space, time has disappeared." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry]  1884)

"Every situation is an equilibrium of forces; every life is a struggle between opposing forces working within the limits of a certain equilibrium." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1885)

"Understanding [...] must begin by saturating itself with facts and realities. [...] Besides, we only understand that which is already within us. To understand is to possess the thing understood, first by sympathy and then by intelligence. Instead of first dismembering and dissecting the object to be conceived, we should begin by laying hold of it in its ensemble. The procedure is the same, whether we study a watch or a plant, a work of art or a character." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1886)

"The art which is grand and yet simple is that which presupposes the greatest elevation both in artist and in public." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1893)

"The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1893)

"Time is the supreme illusion. It is but the inner prism by which we decompose being and life, the mode under which we perceive successively what is simultaneous in idea." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1893)

"Our systems, perhaps, are nothing more than an unconscious apology for our faults, a gigantic scaffolding whose object is to hide from us our favorite sin." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1896)

"Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)

"Minds accustomed to analysis never allow objections more than half-value, because they appreciate the variable and relative elements which enter in." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)

"No forms of error are so erroneous as those that have the appearance without the reality of mathematical precision." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)

"Time and space are fragments of the infinite for the use of finite creatures." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)

"To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)

"Wisdom consists in rising superior both to madness and to common sense, and in lending one's self to the universal delusion without becoming its dupe." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)

Week 2023-36: Donald C Gause - Collected Quotes

"A problem is a difference between things as desired and things as perceived. […] Seen in this way, the problem could be solved either by changing desires or changing perceptions." (Donald C Gause & Gerald M Weinberg, "Are Your Lights On?", 2011)

"As a practical matter, it is impossible to define natural, day-to-day problems in a single, unique, totally unambiguous fashion. On the other hand, without some common understanding of the problem, a solution will almost invariably be to the wrong problem." (Donald C Gause & Gerald M Weinberg, "Are Your Lights On?", 2011)

"Don't mistake a solution method for a problem definition - especially if it’s your own solution method." (Donald C Gause & Gerald M Weinberg, "Are Your Lights On?", 2011)

"Each solution is the source of next problem. We never get rid of problems. Problems, solutions, and new problems weave an endless chain. The best we can hope for is that the problems we substitute are less troublesome than the ones we 'solve'." (Donald C Gause & Gerald M Weinberg, "Are Your Lights On?", 2011)

"If you can’t think of at least three things that might be wrong with your understanding of the problem, you don’t understand the problem." (Donald C Gause & Gerald M Weinberg, "Are Your Lights On?", 2011)

"Much of what has traditionally been called 'problem-solving' is, in reality, puzzle solving. A puzzle is difficult by design - but that difficulty implies a designer." (Donald C Gause & Gerald M Weinberg, "Are Your Lights On?", 2011)

"The fledgling problem solver invariably rushes in with solutions before taking time to define the problem being solved. Even experienced solvers, when subjected to social pressure, yield to this demand for haste. When they do, many solutions are found, but not necessarily to the problem at hand." (Donald C Gause & Gerald M Weinberg, "Are Your Lights On?", 2011)

"The really important thing in dealing with problems is to know that the question is never answered, but that it doesn't matter, as long as you keep asking. It's only when you fool yourself into thinking you have the final problem definition - the final, true answer - that you can be fooled into thinking you have the final solution. And if you think that, you're always wrong, because there is no such thing as a 'final solution'." (Donald C Gause & Gerald M Weinberg, "Are Your Lights On?", 2011)

"Wherever possible, we initially place the problem in the semantic level that lends us the most comfort." (Donald C Gause & Gerald M Weinberg, "Are Your Lights On?", 2011)

Week 2023-35: Hypatia of Alexandria

"All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final." ([attributed] Hypatia of Alexandria)

"Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth - often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable." ([attributed] Hypatia of Alexandria)

"He who influences the thinking of his time, influences all the moments that follow him. Leave your opinion for eternity." (Hypatia of Alexandria)

"In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth - often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable." (Hypatia of Alexandria)

"Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond." (Hypatia of Alexandria)

"Life is growth, and the more we travel, the more truth we can understand. Understanding the things that surround us is the best preparation to understand the things that lie beyond." (Hypatia of Alexandria)

"Neoplatonism is progressive philosophy, and does not expect to state final conditions to men whose minds are finite. Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond." ([attributed] Hypatia of Alexandria)

"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all." (Hypatia of Alexandria)

"To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another world, is just as base as to use force. [...] Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all." ([attributed] Hypatia of Alexandria)