Spiros Kalimeris > Spiros's Quotes

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
― George Orwell

“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”
― George Orwell

“Sanity is not statistical.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....”
― Noam Chomsky, The Common Good

“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.”
― Noam Chomsky

“Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines that everybody else is saying,... [o]r else you say something which in fact is true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.”
― Noam Chomsky, Propaganda and the Public Mind

“That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything.”
― Noam Chomsky

“You've heard of people calling in sick. You may have called in sick a few times yourself. But have you ever thought about calling in well?

It'd go like this: You'd get the boss on the line and say, "Listen, I've been sick ever since I started working here, but today I'm well and I won't be in anymore." Call in well.”
― Tom Robbins

“You will search the world over and not find a nonsuperstitious community. As long as there is ignorance, there will be adherence to superstition. Dispelling ignorance is the only solution. That is why I teach.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Spinoza Problem

“If we suspect that a man is lying, we should pretend to believe him; for then he becomes bold and assured, lies more vigorously, and is unmasked.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“If you want to have the kind of relationship that your heart yearns for, you have to create it. You can't depend on somebody else creating it for you.”
― Gary Zukav

“Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science. ”
― Gary Zukav

“There is no difference between acute schizophrenia and a world at war.”
― Gary Zukav

“Science replaces private prejudice with public, verifiable evidence.”
― Richard Dawkins

“I mean it as a compliment when I say that you could almost define a philosopher as someone who won't take common sense for an answer.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

“I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace.”
― Baruch Spinoza

“The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure....you are above everything distressing.”
― Spinoza

“We should realize that, if [Socrates] demanded that the wisest men should rule, he clearly stressed that he did not mean the learned men; in fact, he was skeptical of all professional learnedness, whether it was that of the philosophers or of the learned men of his own generation, the Sophists. The wisdom he meant was of a different kind. It was simply the realization: how little do I know! Those who did not know this, he taught, knew nothing at all. This is the true scientific spirit.”
― Karl Raimund Popper

“For myself, I am interested in science and in philosophy only because I want to learn something about the riddle of the world in which we live, and the riddle of man's knowledge of that world. And I believe that only a revival of interest in these riddles can save the sciences and philosophy from an obscurantist faith in the expert's special skill and in his personal knowledge and authority.”
― Karl Raimund Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery

“Politicians are like bad horsemen who are so preoccupied with staying in the saddle that they can’t bother about where they’re going.”
― Joseph Alois Schumpeter