Like most vigorous-minded men, seeing that there was no stopping-place between dogma and negation, he preferred to accept dogma. O...f all weaknesses he most disliked timed and half-hearted faith. He would rather have jumped at once to Strong's pure denial, than yield an inch to the argument that a mystery was to be paltered with because it could not be explained.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"I tell you the solemn truth that the doctrine of the Trinity is not so difficult to accept for a working proposition as any one o...f the axioms of physics."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Our discussion will be adequate; if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of; for precision is not to be sought fo...r alike in all discussions, and more than in all the products of the crafts. Now fine and just actions, which political science investigates, exhibit much variety and fluctuation, so that they may be thought to exist only by convention, and not by nature. And goods also exhibit a similar fluctuation.... We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premises, to indicate the truth roughly and in outline.... In the same spirit, therefore, should each of our statements be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits: it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician demonstrative proofs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; i...t is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician demonstrative proofs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifyability. We say that a... sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express--that is, if he knows what observations would lead him, under certain conditions, to accept the proposition as true, or reject it as being false.... To make our position clearer, we may formulate it in another way. Let us call a proposition which records an actual or possible observation an experiential proposition. Then we may say that it is the mark of a genuine factual proposition, not that it should be equivalent to an experiential proposition, or any finite number of experiential propositions, but simply that some experiential propositions can be deduced from it in conjunction with certain other premises without being deducible from those other premises alone.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One learns quite easily to identify the rich person who is making a career out of dangling the carrot; of being fawned on by insti...tutions eager for his (or, more often, her) money. It is not very productive to "cultivate" them. I associated with many, and developed great compassion for rich people who suspect that they are in demand only because they are a potential source of income to some cause or institution. Whether it's true or not, their suspicions isolate them from all save a handful of old and trusted friends, turn them sour, make it difficult for them to accept new friends at face value, and leave them with little attraction other than their money.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Since it is the Other within us who is old, it is natural that the revelation of our age should come to us from outside--from othe...rs. We do not accept it willingly.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We have imagined ourselves a special creation, set apart from other humans. In the last twentieth century, we see that our poverty... is as absolute as that of the poorest nations. We have attempted to deny the human condition in our quest for power after power. It would be well for us to rejoin the human race, to accept our essential poverty as a gift, and to share our material wealth with those in need.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are all such accidents. We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice. We make what we can of ...our condition with the means available. We must accept the mixture as we find it--the impurity of it, the tragedy of it, the hope of it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »