quotation debate

[Smartypants]

There is in every either-or a certain naivete which may well befit the evaluator, but ill- becomes the thinker, for whom opposites dissolve in series of transitions.

--Robert Musil

[Hyakujo's Fox]

No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.

--John Stuart Mill

[masterofNone]

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

[Hyakujo's Fox]

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.

George Orwell, 1984






and he was only twenty years off...

[masterofNone]

In Iraq, my administration looked at the intelligence information and we saw a threat.
George W. Bush

[Smartypants]

Having intelligence is not as important as knowing when to use it, just as having a hoe is not as important as knowing when to plant.

--Chinese proverb.

[masterofNone]

where the hell is malina?
moN

[Smartypants]

Lost in a gloom of uninspired research.

--William Wordsworth

[Smartypants]

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

--Blaise Pascal

[mememe]

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy.

-- William Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing"

[Smartypants]

Silence is the most intolerable of answers.

--Mason Cooley

[mememe]

I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots.

-- Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"

[Smartypants]

The history of imitation of the older literature, particularly abroad, has among other advantages this one, that the important concepts of unintentional parody and passive wit can be deduced from it most easily and comprehensively.

--Friedrich Von Schlegel

[Hyakujo's Fox]

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

-- T. S. Eliot

[Smartypants]

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.

--Lionel Trilling*

*And I guess he should know -- SP