Category: Thought

The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.

H. L. Mencken, Damn! A Book of Calumny (1918), p. 40.

Truth does not do as much good in the world as the semblance of truth does evil.

François de La Rochefoucauld, 2nd Duke of La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Maxims (1665), no. 67 (Leonard Tancock, trans.)

You can’t imagine how stupid the whole world has grown nowadays.

Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls (1842). The same passage in D. J. Hogarth’s translation: “ As things are now, the world has grown stupid to a degree that passes belief.”

“Go and see with how little wisdom this world is governed.”

John Adams, in a letter to John Quincy Adams (received June 3, 1794), advising of a diplomatic position opening up. See Phyllis Lee Levin, The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams (2015), first page.

Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes.

Edgard Varèse, as quoted by Martha Graham,  Dance Observer, Volumes 24 – 27 (1957), p. 5.

More individualistic countries are also richer, more innovative, and more economically productive.

Joseph Henrich, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous (2020).