Wednesday, March 19, 2014
The Reasoning Of Reason
“In questions of science, the
authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single
individual.”
Galileo Galilei
“I'll not listen to reason...
reason always means what someone else has got to say.”
Elizabeth Gaskell
“People mistakenly assume that
their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which
first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning
that will defend it.”
Anthony De Mello
“Sometimes, humour makes more sense
than reasoning.”
Toba Beta
“The truths of religion are never
so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning.”
Voltaire
“I really do not know, Socrates,
how to express what I mean. For somehow or other our arguments, on whatever
ground we rest them, seem to turn round and walk away from us.”
Plato
“How much truth is contained in
something can be best determined by making it thoroughly laughable and then
watching to see how much joking around it can take. For truth is a matter that
can withstand mockery, that is freshened by any ironic gesture directed at it.
Whatever cannot withstand satire is false.”
Peter Sloterdijk
“Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such
is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven
to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish.
Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning.
Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be
friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with
a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a
squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even
affectionately.
Next, in another cage I confined an
Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch
Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian
from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist
from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from
Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note
results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was
but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones
and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on
a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.”
Mark Twain
“Children must be taught how to
think, not what to think.”
Margaret Mead
The Great Dictator -Machine Minds And Machine Hearts
This is Charlie Chaplin's final speech in The Great Dictator,
a movie made in 1940, at a time when Hitler seemed all powerful and unstoppable.
Hitler had not at this time declared war on America and operation Barbarossa, the
invasion of the USSR, had not yet begun. This is Charlie Chaplin’s film in
every sense of the word for he wrote, directed, produced and starred in it. The
final speech in the film is unarguably one of the greatest speech’s ever given
and It’s relevance to the current
state of affairs today and history as a whole cannot be overlooked.
Barry
-------------------------
“I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not
my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help
everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one
another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness,
not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In
this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can
provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have
lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with
hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed,
but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in
want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We
think too much and feel too little.
More than machinery, we need humanity. More than
cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will
be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us
closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness
in men; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now
my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men,
women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and
imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The
misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men
who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators
die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so
long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers!
Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you,
enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and
what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon
fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine
minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are
men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the
unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In
the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the kingdom of God is
within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the
people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create
happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and
beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of
democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new
world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth
a future and old age a security.
By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to
power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to
fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national
barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a
world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's
happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!” ―
Charlie Chaplin
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Photos: Looking Out The Window
Milky Way in Italy
Woman on bike in Estonia with goldfish
Shetland pony in the Netherlands
Before the splash in Malaysia
Lining up in China
Looking out the window
Photos: Some Of The Best Beaches In The World
Rhosssini Beach in Wales
Wolacambe beach in Devon in England
Portminster beach in Cornwall in England
Hengistbury Head beach in in Dorset in England
Perranperth beach in Cornwall England
Longsands beach in Tynemouth in England
Ribadeo beach in Spain
La Concha beach in Spain
Monday, March 17, 2014
The Pointlessness Of Arguing
“Arguments are to be avoided, they
are always vulgar and often convincing.”
Oscar Wilde
“If you don't want to be in an
argument with someone, it is probably best to try to solve the problem, rather
than lying around hoping the other person will do it for you.”
E Lockhart
“The silence is the worst part of
any argument, because it's made up of all the things we wish we could say, if
only we had the courage.”
Peter Wentz
“Be leery of silence. It doesn't
mean you won the argument. Often, people are just busy reloading their guns.”
Shannon Alder
“If you need to invoke your
academic pedigree or job title for people to believe what you say, then you
need a better argument.”
Neil Tyson
“You can't win an argument. You
can't because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.”
Dale Carnegie
“You can stop a thief, you can stop
an argument, but you cannot stop a liar”
Anon
“Do you want to be right or do you
want to get along”
Dr Phil
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