Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
Quote of the Week 29 “ Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” ― Simone Weil
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We don't really want what we think we desire.
Quote of the Week 27 “ We don't really want what we think we desire.” ― Slavoj Žižek Triggered by thephilosophyquote on Instagram: Sieh dir diesen Beitrag auf Instagram an Ein Beitrag geteilt von Promoting the world through books (@indieauthorshowcase) As quoted on Goodreads and BigThink : “ We don't really want to get what we think that we want. I am married to a wife and relationship with her are cold and I have a mistress. And all the time I dream oh my god if my wife were to disappear - I'm not a murderer but let us say- that it will open up a new life with the mistress.Then, for some reason, the wife goes away, you lose the mistress. You thought this is all I want, when you have it there, you turn out it was a much more complex situation. It was not to live with the mistress, but to keep her as a distance as on object of desire about which you dream. This is not an excessive example, I claim this is how things function. We don't really w...
What can be shown cannot be said.
Quote of the Week 25 “ What can be shown cannot be said.” ― Ludwig Wittgenstein Triggered by Hartmut Esslinger 's comment on Apple's "Liquid Glass" UI. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy : Wittgenstein does not, however, relegate all that is not inside the bounds of sense to oblivion. He makes a distinction between saying and showing which is made to do additional crucial work. “What can be shown cannot be said,” that is, what cannot be formulated in sayable (sensical) propositions can only be shown. This applies, for example, to the logical form of the world, the pictorial form, etc., which show themselves in the form of (contingent) propositions, in the symbolism, and in logical propositions. Even the unsayable (metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic) propositions of philosophy belong in this group—which Wittgenstein finally describes as “things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical”. “ Was gezeigt werden...
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
Quote of the Week 12 “ Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.” ― Henri Bergson “ Man muss wie ein denkender Mensch handeln und wie ein handelnder Mensch denken. ” “ Il faut agir en homme de pensée et penser en homme d'action. ” ― Henri Bergson , Message au Congrès Descartes , IXe Congrès international de philosophie (1937) Triggered by further reflection on last week's quote " Thought is the enemy of flow " and the related idea that " Thought kills action ". " For Bergson, the action is the lowest sphere of the spirit, where it touches the physical mechanism, whereas it reaches its climax in the mere speculative freedom of the dream. " From X/Grok3: The popular English version of Henri Bergson's quote, "Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought," reverses the sequence compared to the original French, "Il faut agir en homme de pensée et penser en homme d'action" (directly translated as ...
What you can imagine depends on what you know.
Quote of the Week 17 " What you can imagine depends on what you know. " ― Daniel Dennett ( ✝ April 19, 2024) Full quote: “What you can imagine depends on what you know. Philosophers who know only philosophy consign themselves to a janitorial role in the great enterprises of exploration that are illuminating the mysteries of our lives.”
The idea of the future is more fruitful than the future itself.
Quote of the Week 12 " The idea of the future, pregnant with an infinity of possibilities, is thus more fruitful than the future itself, and this is why we find more charm in hope than in possession, in dreams than in reality. " ― Henri Bergson The search for this quote was triggered by a recent visit to Bergson Kunstkraftwerk still under construction. Another quote attributed to Bergson for which I could not find the original source: " New ideas, in most cases, are the children of old thoughts. "
The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition that needs illusions.
Quote of the Week 2 "The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition that needs illusions." ― Karl Marx " Die Forderung, die Illusionen über seinen Zustand aufzugeben, ist die Forderung, einen Zustand aufzugeben, der der Illusionen bedarf . " ― Karl Marx Triggered by reading up on " Religion is opium of / for the people ". From his 1843 Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. ___ Da...
You can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to it.
Quote of the Week 27 " You can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to it. " ― Ryan Holiday ( The Daily Stoic ) A variation of: " You don’t control the situation, but you control what you think about it. " ― Ryan Holiday See also: “You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.” ― Brian Tracy " It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. " ― Epictetus Triggered by the use of a variant of the quote in a recent Daily Stoic tweet : You don’t control the situation, but you control what you think about it. — Daily Stoic (@dailystoic) June 29, 2023 Related: " Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness. " ― Viktor Frankl
The limits of my language means the limits of my world.
Quote of the Week 10 "The limits of my language means the limits of my world." ― Ludwig Wittgenstein Triggered by the citation in a recent Microsoft Research paper: " Language Is Not All You Need: Aligning Perception with Language Models ". "Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt." Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung ( Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus ), Satz 5.6 [ LinkedIn ]
Man conquers the world by conquering himself.
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Quote of the Week 6 " Man conquers the world by conquering himself . " ― Zeno of Citium Triggered by a Daily Stoic tweet: "Man conquers the world by conquering himself." — Zeno — Daily Stoic (@dailystoic) January 25, 2023 Source: Wikipedia [ LinkedIn ]
Objective truths are established by evidence. Personal truths by faith. Political truths by incessant repetition.
Quote of the Week 5 " Objective truths are established by evidence. Personal truths by faith. Political truths by incessant repetition." ― Neil deGrasse Tyson Cited in the June 2022 " Fantastic Facts and How to Use Them " presentation by Nithin Bopanna. Triggered by the reference to a different part of the presentation focused on the (ab)use of DORA metrics . [ LinkedIn ]
Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.
2nd Quote of the Week 40 " Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. " ― Steve Jobs (who passed away 11 years ago today)
If you expect others to agree with you, why aren’t you trying more often to agree with them?
Quote of the Week 35 " If you expect others to agree with you, why aren’t you trying more often to agree with them? " ― Olivier Sibony Triggered by Sibony's statement in a McKinsey Quarterly article " Sounding the alarm on system noise " promoting the book " Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment " he co-authored with Daniel Kahnemann and Cass Sunstein. Olivier Sibony: "There is an almost philosophical thing that I would like leaders to think about, which is this: If you expect others to agree with you, why aren’t you trying more often to agree with them? Why do so many people, especially in leadership positions, seem to believe that their role is to express a unique, distinct, even original point of view on what needs to be done and, at the same time, find it troubling when others don’t agree with them?"
All actual life is encounter.
Quote of the Week 20 " All actual life is encounter. " ― Martin Buber (I and Thou) Variant translation: "All real life is meeting." "Alles wirkliche Leben ist Begegnung." ― Martin Buber (Ich und Du) Triggered by the use of the quote in a recent podcast .
There is no truth, only belief.
Quote of the Week 16 " There is no truth, only belief." ― Unknown I have seen this quote attributed to René Descartes and David Hume but could not find a definitive source. See also " The Belief in Truth " and Oleg Filin's " The Portrait of M. Monroe " for expressing the same thought.
Man is a deterministic device thrown into a probabilistic universe. In this match, surprises are expected.
Quote of the Week 5 " Man is a deterministic device thrown into a probabilistic universe. In this match, surprises are expected ." ― Amos Tversky Cited in Michael Lewis' book " The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds " featuring the joint work and friendship of two renowned psychologists: Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky . See http://covestreetcapital.com/amos-tversky-an-amazing-man/ for more Amos Tversky quotes taken from the book .