Quotes & Theories on Life

SOCIETY

“The direction of the mind is more important than its progress.”
– Joseph Joubert

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality, nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit."
– Christopher McCandless

"Genocide is not just a murderous madness; it is, more deeply, a politics that promises a utopia beyond politics - one people, one land, one truth, the end of difference. Since genocide is a form of political utopia, it remains an enduring temptation in any multiethnic and multicultural society in crisis."
– Michael Ignatieff

"We face a conflict between civilisation and culture, which used to be on the same side. Civilisation means rational reflection, material wellbeing, individual autonomy and ironic self-doubt; culture means a form of life that is customary, collective, passionate, spontaneous, unreflective and irrational."
– Terry Eagleton

POLITICS

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."
– Noam Chomsky

"The belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions."
– Paul Watzlawick

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
– Plato

EDUCATION

"You must not depend on authority for everything that you learn. Learning something out of a book, or from an authority who says 'this is the way it is' - that is not getting an education."
– James Randi

"The supreme lesson of any education should be to think for yourself and to be yourself; absent this attainment, education creates dangerous, stupefying conformity."
– Bryant H. McGill

"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."
– Isaac Asimov

RELIGION

"There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven."
– Georg C. Lichtenberg

"Belief, like any other moving body, follows the path of least resistance."
– Samuel Butler