The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able... to obtain the truth adequately, while on the other hand, no one fails entirely, but everyone says something true about the nature of things, and while individually they contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed. Therefore, since the truth seems to be like the proverbial door, which no one can fail to hit, in this way it is easy, but the fact that we can have a whole truth, and not the particular part we aim at shows the difficulty of it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A computer does not think, it feels nothing, and what it is said to "know"--bits of information all cast in the digital mode--has ...no fringe. Nor has it a memory, only storage room. On any point called for, the answer is all or none. Vagueness, intelligent confusion, original punning on words or ideas never occur, the internal hookups being unchangeable; they were determined once for all by the true minds that made the machine and program. When plugged in, the least elaborate computer can be relied on to work to the fullest extent of its capacity; the greatest mind cannot be relied on for the simplest thing; its variability is its superiority.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No one can doubt, that the convention for the distinction of property, and for the stability of possession, is of all circumstance...s the most necessary to the establishment of human society, and that after the agreement for the fixing and observing of this rule, there remains little or nothing to be done towards settling a perfect harmony and concord.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Rest enough for the individual man. Too much and too soon and we call it death. But for Man no rest and no ending. He must go on, ...conquest beyond conquest. First, this little planet and its winds and ways. And then all laws of mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets about him. And at last, out across immensity to the stars. And when he has conquered all the deeps of space and all the mysteries of time, still he will be beginning.... Little animals. And if we're no more than animals we must snatch each little scrap of happiness, and live and suffer and pass, mattering no more than all the other animals do or have done. It is this, or that. All the universe or nothing. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A person unlearns arrogance when he knows he is always among worthy human beings; being alone fosters presumption. Young people ar...e arrogant because they always associate with their own peers, those who are all really nothing but who would like to be very important.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing. I won't be a commonplace dauber, so I... don't intend to try any more.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I begin, then, with some remarks about 'the meaning of a word.' I think many persons now see all or part of what I shall say: but ...not all do, and there is a tendency to forget, or to get it slightly wrong. In so far as I am merely flogging the converted, I apologize to them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have... read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind, that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important ...one to be, to wit, that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth ... have not any subsistence without a mind, that their being (esse) is to be perceived or known; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some eternal spirit.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »