Category: Thought

“Repeatedly over the past few years the American public has been subjected to a litany of catastrophes — to predictions of impending disaster that are claimed to be unique to modern civilization. The oceans are dying, the atmosphere is poisoned, the earth itself is losing its capacity to support life. . . . The anticipated catastrophes are our own fault, of course, blamed on the greedy and perfidious nature of modern man.

“Well, it’s all pretty heady stuff, but is it true? As with so many issues that involve technology, the answer is yes — and no — probably rather more ‘no’ than ‘yes.’”

Dixy Lee Ray, Trashing the Planet, 1990

“Who speaks for science? Or, to put it another way, on whom does the press rely to speak for science?”

Dixy Lee Ray, Trashing the Planet, 1990

“The great question which, in all ages, has disturbed mankind, and brought on them the greatest part of their mischiefs … has been, not whether be power in the world, nor whence it came, but who should have it.”

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1689

Scientific method consists in applying to those subjects which lie without the range of our immediate experience those same common-sense methods of reasoning which successful men of the world apply in judging of matters which concern their own interests.

Simon Newcomb, Principles of Political Economy, 1886, chapter III, “Of Scientific Method.”

“The best instruction is that which uses the least words sufficient for the task.”

Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child, 1948

“Although we may consider society as an organism, we must not carry the analogy with living organisms too far. There is one very important point in which society or the social organism differs from a plant or animal. We think of every plant and animal as having an individuality of its own, distinct from the conglomeration of organs which form it. Moreover, we cannot add to or subtract from the parts of the plant or animal without detracting from its character. A man cannot have three legs, and if he has only one he is imperfect. But there is no such completeness in the social organism. We can add new men to any extent, or we may divide a country into two without changing the character of the organism. In other words, it has no such attribute as individuality. By assigning such an attribute to it, and giving it a name, we may be led into confusion of thought. The people of each country and of each city may be considered to form a separate organism, but at the same time steam transportation has brought most of the world into such close communication that we may consider all these little organisms as parts of a great one, including the whole human race.”

Simon Newcomb, Principles of Political Economy, 1886, p. 8

It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book IV, Ch. 7, sec. 11, 1689.

“He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.”

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book III, Ch. 10, sec. 31, 1689

The more laws and order are made prominent,
The more thieves and robbers there will be.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Therefore the sight that is granted to your world penetrates within the Eternal Justice as the eye into the sea; for though from the shore it sees the bottom, in the open sea it does not, and yet the bottom is there but the depth conceals it.”

Però ne la giustizia sempiterna
la vista che riceve il vostro mondo,
com’ occhio per lo mare, entro s’interna;
che, ben che da la proda veggia il fondo,
in pelago nol vede; e nondimeno
èli, ma cela lui l’esser profondo.

Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, Canto XIX, lines 58-63.