Avrum was there in the audience, I believe, in Berkeley on the afternoon in 1941 when, in conformity with the law subsequently enu...nciated by Murphy, what could go wrong, epistemologically, did. G.E. Moore was delivering the Howison Lecture in Wheeler Auditorium, which had a handsome coffered ceiling inset with glass panels. Giving a local angle to his defence of common sense, Moore declared that among the things he knew there and then was that light from the sun was streaming through the roof. Most in the audience were aware, however, that the glass panels were diffusers for electrical illumination; the roof of the building was solid and opaque. Someone had the temerity to point this out to Moore in the question period. He responded, "Oh dear me!" and went on to the next question.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of c...asting their slough annually; they have the idea of the thing, whether they have the reality or not.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You cannot, in human experience, rush into the light. You have to go through the twilight into the broadening day before the noon ...comes and the full sun is upon the landscape.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Do you know, I've never really grown up? It's a hard thing for me to play this game. In politics, one must meet people, and that's... not easy for me.... When I was a little fellow, as long ago as I can remember, I would go into a panic if I heard stranger voices in the house. I felt I just couldn't meet the people and shake hands with them. Most of the visitors would sit with Mother and Father in the kitchen and the hardest thing in the world was to go through the door and give them a greeting.... I'm all right with old friends, but every time I meet a stranger, I've got to go through the old kitchen door, back home, and it's not easy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Even though the world as a whole progresses, youth must always start again from the beginning, and as individuals go through the e...pochs of the world's culture.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »