Category: Thought

A man should be upright, not kept upright.

La plus belle des ruses du diable est
de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas.

The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist.

Charles Baudelaire, Le Spleen de Paris (1869; posthumous).

Paraphrased in The Usual Suspects as “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Sketch of the author is by Édouard Manet.

Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

David Hume, “Of the First Principles of Government,” in Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects (London: A. Millar, 1764), vol. I, essay IV.

No one can flatter himself that he is immune to the spirit of his own epoch, or even that he possesses a full understanding of it. Irrespective of our conscious convictions, each one of us, without exception, being a particle of the general mass, is somewhere attached to, colored by, or even undermined by the spirit which goes through the mass. Freedom stretches only as far as the limits of our consciousness.

Carl Gustav Jung, Paracelsus the Physician (1942).

The seventeenth century is everywhere a time in which the state’s power over everything individual increases, whether that power be in absolutist hands or may be considered the result of a contract, etc. People begin to dispute the sacred right of the individual ruler or authority without being aware that at the same time they are playing into the hands of a colossal state power.

Jacob Burckhardt, Reflections on History.

There are people who are known to be very liberal, yet they never give without scolding or pride or even insolence.

John Calvin, De Vita Hominis Christiani, 1550.

It is striking, when you think about it, just how often politicians invoke ‘the intel community’ when they’re lying to you.

Tucker Carlson, on Tucker Carlson Tonight (Fox News, August 19, 2021).

Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.

Thomas Szasz, in The Second Sin‎ (1973), “Science and Scientism,” p. 115.

Society is purely and solely a continual series of exchanges. It is never anything else, in any epoch of its duration, from its commencement the most unformed, to its greatest perfection. And this is the greatest eulogy we can give to it, for exchange is an admirable transaction, in which the two contracting parties always both gain; consequently society is an uninterrupted succession of advantages, unceasingly renewed for all its members.

The easy way to tell which side is wrong: . . . it’s the side that shoots its dissidents. If they do that, you can pretty much count on the fact that they are wrong.

Professor Jonathan Haidt, in conversation with PhilosophyInsights, “What is Going on with Diversity Training (DEI)?” (August 15, 2015).