“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.”
― Bertrand Russell (1872-1972), Unpopular Essays
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science and various areas of analytic philosophy, especially philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics
“Nothing is more certain of destroying any good feeling that may be cherished toward us, than to show distrust; to be suspected as an enemy, is often enough to make a man become so; confidence leads us naturally to act kindly; we are affected by the good opinion which others entertain of us, and we are not easily induced to lose it.”
— Mme. de Staal
STAAL, MADAME DE, (DE LAUNAI,) born in Paris, 1693; an eminent French lady and authoress; died, 1750.
I feel but sad and somewhat arrogant within my feelings of trust and distrust in the state of civic virtues of my fellow Americans, it is the most uncomfortable of truths of which I am faced. It is on par with the uncomfortable inaction we are presently doing on climate change. And this very issue is only another point of distrust in that ignorance or denial is setting humanity for a great fall, and another very difficult matter of contention not getting proper attention. One cannot always assume one is entirely correct in who to trust or distrust, there is no infallibility. But the divide, the chasm which separates Americans today is entirely unhealthy and dysfunctional. There are saboteurs of our democracy who may be gloating over our current state, as this may be their dream. But we must persevere, to wish it to not be so is only an empty surrender to our dilemma. I’ve expressed myself nonetheless.
“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”
― Thomas Paine
“Time makes more converts than reason.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense
Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; February 9, 1737 – June 8, 1809) was an English-born American Founding Father, political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. He authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), two of the most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and he helped to inspire the Patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of human rights.
The psychic task which a person can and must set for himself is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.
— Erich Fromm
Erich Seligmann Fromm (March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the US. He was one of the founders of The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City and was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory.
32nd Posting, May 4, 2023.