Quotes

[galtgulch]

'Yodah says: Do not your breath hold, Young GaltGulch, until made is movie of -Atlas Shrugged- else blue turn you will.'

"No man's need constitutes an obligation on the part of another man to fulfill that need!"

anonymous Objectivist

[BaalChatzaf]

Hume wanted to burn books?

Dayaamm!

I think Hume must be given more serious attention by Objectivists, but with comments like that, all he did was add gasoline to the flames of the Hume/Kant burners.

Michael

Hume was simply being rhetorical. In fact he was a librarian at some period in his life, and he wrote -the- definitive book on English history (at that time). It was the first fully documented history of England. Our own Ben Franklin made arrangement to buy a set and to help fund Hume's historical efforts. So I seriously doubt that Hume was a genuine book burner.

He considered only two classes of statement philosophically meaningful:

1. Statements about the relationships of ideas

2. Statements about fact and quantity (empirical statements).

Anything else, he considered as nonsense, hence his rather rhetorically excessive quip.

Whether you agree with Hume or not, just compare the clarity of his writing with the obscurity of Kant's writings. Hume wrote in order to be read with understanding.

Ba'al Chafatz (Lord of Chutpah)

[Steve Gagne]

I wanted to add one here, but I couldn't, because as we all know

It's the hardest thing in the world -- to do what you want.

[Brant Gaede]

I wanted to add one here, but I couldn't, because as we all know

It's the hardest thing in the world -- to do what you want.

Nice quote, but it's truth depends on any individual. For me, the hardest thing (in this context) is doing what I need to do (long term) as opposed to what I might want NOW, if there's a conflict.

Taken literally, the statement is, of course, false. Try doing anything you don't want to do, like kicking your dog. Won't work. You won't get to first base. You won't even seriously consider it and complain that I suggested such a bad and stupid thing. Now, kicking your mother-in-law ...

I don't know who you're quoting, Rand, Peikoff, Branden--? But it's only Objectivist rhetoric of no value except to make you think, which it does.

Speaking of Peikoff, he said, "To save the world is the simplest thing in the world. All one has to do is think." A statement that could hardly be less true in its incompleteness or more dubious in its premises.

--Brant

Edited April 30, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Ciro]

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.

George Bernard Shaw

[bmacwilliam]

"The solution to every problem is to kick it square in the nuts."

- Eric Cartman

[Laure]

I wanted to add one here, but I couldn't, because as we all know

It's the hardest thing in the world -- to do what you want.

Nice quote, but it's truth depends on any individual. For me, the hardest thing (in this context) is doing what I need to do (long term) as opposed to what I might want NOW, if there's a conflict.

Taken literally, the statement is, of course, false. Try doing anything you don't want to do, like kicking your dog. Won't work. You won't get to first base. You won't even seriously consider it and complain that I suggested such a bad and stupid thing. Now, kicking your mother-in-law ...

I don't know who you're quoting, Rand, Peikoff, Branden--? But it's only Objectivist rhetoric of no value except to make you think, which it does.

Speaking of Peikoff, he said, "To save the world is the simplest thing in the world. All one has to do is think." A statement that could hardly be less true in its incompleteness or more dubious in its premises.

--Brant

Brant, you're absolutely right. If the Peikoff quote were true, Mensa members would have saved the world by now. Thought without action gets you nowhere. As to the first quote, I think the hardest thing in the world might be to know what you want. At least, that's my problem.

[BaalChatzaf]

Hume wanted to burn books?

Only the books on Scholastic Metaphysics. They are filled with nonsense anyway.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BAMF]

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.

George Bernard Shaw

That's a great one!

"The solution to every problem is to kick it square in the nuts."

- Eric Cartman

Eric Cartman is amazing.

Here are some more of mine:

"Don't imagine a tragic end to the book when there's not, you gotta try to rewrite in spite of how crooked the plot." - Tonedeff

"And by came an angel who had a bright key,

And he opened the coffins and set them all free;

Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,

And wash in a river, and shine in the sun." - William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper"

"For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils." - William Wordworth's "I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud"

"...and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later." - Lewis Carroll "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

"I just remembered that I'm absent minded. Wait...I mean I've lost my mind...I can't find it." - Eminem

"I was born grown and grew down." - Eminem

Edited May 22, 2007 by Kori

[BaalChatzaf]

Keep your friends close but your enemies closer. Mario Puzo The Godfather I have a few more.

Machiavelli said it first.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

And then, of course, there's the last line from Tennyson's "Ulysses", engraved on the monument to Scott and his men who died in Antarctica:

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Amundsen lived because he paid attention to the details. Scott failed heroically. He was too much the English gentlemen to learn how to survive in the cold from the Inuit (as Amundsen did). Scott was a jackass and his stupidity not only cost him his life, but that of several of his men.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Judith]

And then, of course, there's the last line from Tennyson's "Ulysses", engraved on the monument to Scott and his men who died in Antarctica:

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Amundsen lived because he paid attention to the details. Scott failed heroically. He was too much the English gentlemen to learn how to survive in the cold from the Inuit (as Amundsen did). Scott was a jackass and his stupidity not only cost him his life, but that of several of his men.

Believe it or not, I already knew all that, plus a lot more about the early Antarctic expeditions. I have a small library on the subject. I still like the quote.

Judith

[Chris Grieb]

Judith;

In the Objectiist Forum had a book review about the Scot and Admunsen expeditions that showed that Admunsen was much more rational.

The book is I think called The Loneliest Place on Earth. Scot has always been presented as much more heroic person but my memory of the book and the review was that Admunsen was much smarter and rational.

[BaalChatzaf]

Judith;

In the Objectiist Forum had a book review about the Scot and Admunsen expeditions that showed that Admunsen was much more rational.

The book is I think called The Loneliest Place on Earth. Scot has always been presented as much more heroic person but my memory of the book and the review was that Admunsen was much smarter and rational.

You can get the DVD of the Alstaire Cook series on Scott and Amundsen.

See

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Place-Earth-Mar...w/dp/B00005J74R

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Chris Grieb]

Bob; Thanks! When I finally get a DVD player I will see about getting the film.

[jrearden]

There is left but this single path to tell thee of: namely, that being is. And on this path there are many proofs that being is without beginning and indestructible; it is universal, existing alone, immovable and without end; nor ever was it nor will it be, since it now is, all together, one, and continuous. For what generating of it wilt thou seek out? From what did it grow, and how? I will not permit thee to say or to think that it came from not-being; for it is impossible to think or to say that not-being is. What thine would then have stirred it into activity that it should arise from not-being later rather than earlier? So it is necessary that being either is absolutely or is not. Nor will the force of the argument permit that anything spring from being except being itself. Therefore justice does not slacken her fetters to permit generation or destruction, but holds being firm.

Parmenides, Arthur Fairbanks trans.

[T]he most certain principle of all is that regarding which it is impossible to be mistaken.... For a principle which every one must have who understands anything that is, is not a hypothesis; and that which every one must know who knows anything, he must already have when he comes to a special study. Evidently then such a principle is the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to say. It is, that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect....

Aristotle, Metaphysics, W.D. Ross trans., book 4, chapter 3.

Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause;

He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws.

Richard Francis Burton

A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.

Robert G. Ingersoll

Every man dies, not every man really lives.

Randall Wallace, "Braveheart" screenplay

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Edmund Burke

But grant me from time to time — if there are divine goddesses in the realm beyond good and evil — grant me the sight, but one glance of something perfect, wholly achieved, happy, mighty, triumphant....! Of a man who justifies man...for the sake of which one may still believe in man!

Nietzsche

He that has light within his own clear breast

May sit i' th' centre and enjoy bright day;

But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts

Benighted walks under the midday sun.

John Milton

For truth is truth, though never so old, and time cannot make that false which was once true.

Edward de Vere

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

Patrick Henry

It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.

Giordano Bruno

It is your mind that matters economically, as much or more than your mouth or hands. In the long run, the most important economic effect of population size and growth is the contribution of additional people to our stock of useful knowledge. And this contribution is large enough in the long run to overcome all the costs of population growth.

Because we can expect future generations to be richer than we are, no matter what we do about resources, asking us to refrain from using resources now so that future generations can have them later is like asking the poor to make gifts to the rich.

Julian Simon

There are many other at my site's quote page, http://johnrearden.com/quotes.htm.

[Chris Grieb]

John;

Has I said before you are a great addition to Objectivist Living.

Can you give me a source on the Edmund Burke quote. I have never seen a specific speech cited.

[Roger Bissell]

One of my favorites is "Get the hell out of my way!" But I can't remember whether it was John Galt, or Francisco, or who...?

I also like "Life is an end in itself -- a dead end!" That is by Brother Hugh Astfurrit, from his wonderful book, Polish Objectivism. :-)

REB

[Chris Grieb]

Roger; Is Polish Objectivism a real book? How can I get it.

[Roger Bissell]

Roger; Is Polish Objectivism a real book? How can I get it.

It only exists in "manuscript" form in my brain. :-)

But because I like you, and I know you thirst for more of the Good Brother's wisdom, here is another of his pithy aphorisms:

"Existence exists -- in a certain sense."

OK, another:

"Nature, to be commanded, must be taken by force."

REB

[Chris Grieb]

Roger;

The quote is from Galt. The page number is 1125.

Thank you for those other quotes. They have a perverse inspiration.

[BAMF]

"Get the hell out of my way!"

None of those fellows...it was ME. I say it on a daily basis. Sometimes I like to spice things up and throw an F bomb in there instead.

Here are some good ones:

"I'm afraid sometimes

you'll play lonely games too,

games you can't win

because you'll play against you." - Dr. Seuss (Also, the other quotes in my sig)

"He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying." - Nietzsche

"...But when nothing happens you wince, and the impact makes you glad you exist,

Sadness desists and you miss your family/friends.

As you reexamine your presence, the apathy lifts,

Knowing that in the face of death, you found passion to live.

There's an equal amount of life within a last gasp and a first breath.

No matter how hard it gets, no one truly prefers death,

And if the hurt ends, you're sure blessed.

Remember the determination of your first step

And keep walking." - Tonedeff

"...Amazing how pricks can miss your skin, yet pierce your soul." - Tonedeff