Problems can never be solved with the same mind that created them
Albert Einstein
In our present world science is so dominant that we give it the authority to explain even when it denies what is moet immediate and direct -- our everyday, immediate experience.
Varela, Thomson & Rosch
You know, I've never heard anyone near death say -- and I've never heard of anyone who's ever known anyone near death say -- 'I wish I had spent more time at work.'
Irving D. Yalom
(Psycho)Analysts seem more certain of everything than I am of anything.
Irving D. Yalom
Aan logica alleen kleeft altijd iets gebrekkigs, wat tot zwaarmoedigheid stemt.
Fjodor M. Dostojewski
When I say that science has gradually converted into a slow-acting poison, I mean that the attribution of certainty to scientific knowledge by the common wisdom, an attribution now made so nearly universally that it has become a commonsense dogma, has virtually delegitimized all other ways of understanding.
Joseph Weizenbaum
The declaration of independence of the scientific man, his emancipation from philosophy, is one of the subtler after-effects of democratic organization and disorganization: the self- glorification and self-conceitedness of the learned man is now everywhere in full bloom, and in its best springtime-which does not mean to imply that in this case self-praise smells sweet. Here also the instinct of the populace cries, 'Freedom from all masters!' and after science has, with the happiest results, resisted theology, whose 'hand-maid' it had been too long, it now proposes in its wantonness and indiscretion to lay down laws for philosophy, and in its turn to play the 'master'-what am I saying! to play the PHILOSOPHER on its own account.
Friedrich Nietzsche
What is the scientific man? Firstly, a commonplace type of man, with commonplace virtues: that is to say, a non-ruling, non-authoritative, and non-self-sufficient type of man, he possesses industry, patient adaptableness to rank and file, equability and moderation in capacity and requirement, he has the instinct for people like himself, and for that which they require-for instance: the portion of independence and green meadow without which there is no rest from labour, the claim to honour and consideration (which first and foremost presupposes recognition and recognisability), the sunshine of a good name, the perpetual ratification of his value and usefulness, with which the inward DISTRUST which lies at the bottom of the heart of all dependent men and gregarious animals, has again and again to be overcome. The learned man, as is appropriate, has also maladies and faults of an ignoble kind: he is full of petty envy, and has a lynx-eye for the weak points in those natures to whose elevations he cannot attain.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jezus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the equiring and constructing mind.
Albert Einstein
Krishnamurti's objection to science is twofold. First, it is the siren-song which tempts us away from the world of suffering whose resolution will require our total commitment and intelligence. (...) Second, science in knowledge, knowledge is put together by thought, and thought is trapped in the past, while truth lies in the living present.
from Weber, R. Dialogues with scientists and sages
No experimental methodology ever has or ever will succeed in capturing the essence of the human soul, or ever so much as tracing out an approximately faithfull picture of its complex manifestations.
C. G. Jung
Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.
E. M. Forster
Tot een passie te geraken is vaak erger dan in gevangenschap geraken
Fjodor M. Dostojewski
Un peu de science écarte de la religion et beaucoup y ramène.
Gustave Flaubert
God klinkt als een antwoord, dat is het verderfelijkste aan dat woord: het is zo vaak als antwoord gebruikt. Hij had een naam moeten hebben die als een vraag klonk.
Cees Nooteboom
De hoogte van een menselijke ziel is ten dele daaraan af te meten, in hoeverre en voor wie ze in staat is, eerbied en verering te betuigen of aandacht te hebben.
Fjodor, M. Dostojewski
I think, if you can afford it, a trip to India is on the whole most edifying and, from a psychological point of view, most advisable, although it may give you considerable headaches.
C. G. Jung
He oma, vertel nog eens van de grote schoonmaak.
Van Kooten & De Bie
Niets is zo moeilijk als zich niet te bedriegen.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
I myself still have a mother, and she bars my way to the longed-for rest, to eternal nothingness, I somehow could not forgive myself if I were to die before her.
Sigmund Freud
De mensen tegenwoordig geloven, dat de wetenschappers er zijn om hen te onderrichten, de dichters en musici etcetera om hen blij te maken. Dat deze laatsten hun iets hebben te leren, die idee komt niet bij hen op.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Het komt nooit meer goed.
Gerard Reve
De hele droom van de democratie bestaat uit het verheffen van de proletariër tot het domheidspeil van de burgerman.
Gustave Flaubert
Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn't the TV news is it? Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we're hooked on.
Kurt Vonnegut
Then there is the further question of what is the relationship of thinking to reality. As careful attention shows, thought itself is in an actual process of movement. That is to say, one can feel a sense of flow in the stream of consciousness not dissimilar to the sense of flow in the movement of matter in general. May not thought itself thus be a part of reality as a whole? But then, what could it mean for one part of reality to 'know' another, and to what extent would this be possible?
D. Bohm
Of course, one of the main legitimate functions of thought has always been to help provide security, guaranteeing shelter and food for instance. However, this function went wrong when the principle source of insecurity came to be the operation of thought itself.
D. Bohm & Mark Edwards
Er zijn heel wat vrouwen die zich aangetrokken voelen tot heerszuchtige mannen. Als vlinders tot het vuur. En er zijn vrouwen die niet zo'n behoefte hebben aan een held en zelfs niet aan een vurige minnaar, maar vooral aan een vriend. Onthoud dit goed als je groot wordt: blijf uit de buurt van vrouwen die van tirannen houden, en probeer tussen degenen die een vriend zoeken, niet degenen te vinden die behoefte hebben aan een vriend omdat ze zich een beetje leeg voelen, maar degenen die het leuk vinden om jouw ook te vullen. En onthoud dat vriendschap tussen een vrouw en een man veel en veel kostbaarder en zeldzamer is dan liefde: liefde is eigenlijk nogal grof en zelfs lomp in vergelijking met vriendschap. Vriendschap bevat ook een mate van fijngevoeligheid en van aandachtig luisteren en gulheid, en van een hoogontwikkeld gevoel om maat te houden.
Amos Oz (Een verhaal van liefde en duisternis, p. 609)
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Immanuel Kant
Life is a sexually transmitted disease.
R. D. Laing
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
Voltaire
She tells me that I’m boxed in with a person that doesn’t fit. What a grand human being I would be if only I would be somebody else.
Philip Roth
Die man gelooft echt dat God niet bestaat. En ik, ik geloof dat niet eens.
Laurenz Müllner
I have always eaten animal flesh with a somewhat guilty conscience.
Albert Einstein
The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.
Leonardo da Vinci
Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
Albert Einstein
Nothing ispires as much shame as being a parent. Children confront us with our paradoxes and hypocrisies, and we are exposed. You need to find an answer for every why – Why do we do this? Why don’t we do that? – and often there isn’t a good one. So you say, simply, because. Or you tell a story that you know isn’t true. And whether or not your face reddens, you blush. The shame of parenthood – which is a good shame – is that we want our children to be more whole than we are, to have satisfactory answers. My son not only inspired me to reconsider what kind of eating animal I would be, but shamed me into reconsideration.
Jonathan Safran Foer (Eating animals, p. 40-41)
Just as nothing we do has the direct potential to cause nearly as much animal suffering as eating meat, no daily choice that we make has a greater impact on the environment.
Jonathan Safran Foer (Eating animals, p.74)
Aan het sterven moet een onthechting vooraf gaan – anders is het totale verschrikking, razend verzet, als van een beest dat ter slachting wordt geleid, paniek, gillen als een varken dat gekeeld wordt. Elk mens met een beetje verstand en voorstellingsvermogen ziet in dat hij zich moet voorbereiden op het sterven, en dat kan alleen maar door afstand te nemen van het leven, dingen op te geven, ook dingen waar je van houdt.
Oek De Jong
The myth of science as a purely logical process, constantly reaffirmed in every textbook, article, and lecture, has an overwhelming influence on scientists' perceptions of what they do. Even though scientists are aware of the nonlogical elements of their work, they tend to suppress or at least dismiss them as being of little consequence. A major element of the scientific process is thus denied existence or significance.
William Broad & Nicholas Wade
For the public, a better understanding of the nature of science would lead to their regarding scientists with less awe and a dash more skepticism. A more realistic attitude would be healthy for both. But a proper understanding of science must begin with scientists themselves, and should embrace the concept that there is no discontinuity between scientific and the other modes of intellectual creation. (...) Science is not removed from the wellsprings of art or poetry, nor is it the only cultural expression of rationality. Science is not an abstract body of knowledge, but man's understanding of nature. It is not an idealized interrogation of nature by dedicated servants of truth, but a human process governed by the ordinary human passions of ambition, pride, and greed, as well as by all the well-hymned virtues attributed to men of science.
William Broad & Nicholas Wade
If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.
Charles Darwin
An old tradition in science proclaims that changes in theory must be driven by observation. Since most scientists believe this simplistic formula, they assume that their own shifts in interpretation only record their better understanding of newly discovered facts. Scientists therefore tend to be unaware of their own mental impositions upon the world’s messy and ambiguous factuality. Such mental impositions arise from a variety of sources, including psychological predispositions and social context.
Stephen Jay Gould
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Albert Einstein
It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.
Konrad Lorenz
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Martin Luther King Jr.
As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.
Noam Chomsky
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard Feinman
The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.
Stephen Jay Gould
Then there is the further question of what is the relationship of thinking to reality. As careful attention shows, thought itself is in an actual process of movement. That is to say, one can feel a sense of flow in the stream of consciousness not dissimilar to the sense of flow in the movement of matter in general. May not thought itself thus be a part of reality as a whole? But then, what could it mean for one part of reality to 'know' another, and to what extent would this be possible?
D. Bohm
Of course, one of the main legitimate functions of thought has always been to help provide security, guaranteeing shelter and food for instance. However, this function went wrong when the principle source of insecurity came to be the operation of thought itself.
D. Bohm & Mark Edwards
I have always felt that the way one faces death is greatly determined by the model one's parents set. The last give a parent can give to children is to teach them, through example, how to face death with equanimity.
Irving Yalom