Clay > Clay's Quotes

“The polemical title is “The Force of Falsity,” and in the lecture I wanted to show how a number of ideas that today we consider false actually changed the world (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse) and how, in the best instances, false beliefs and discoveries totally without credibility could then lead to the discovery of something true (or at least something we consider true today). In the field of the sciences, this mechanism is known as serendipity.”
― Umberto Eco, Serendipities: Language and Lunacy

“False tales are, first of all, tales, and tales, like myths, are always persuasive.”
― Umberto Eco, Serendipities: Language and Lunacy

“The social theory of conspiracy, Popper says, is a consequence of the end of God as a reference point and of the consequent question, Who is there in his place? This place is now occupied by various men and powerful, sinister groups that can be blamed for having organized the Great Depression and all the evils we suffer.10”
― Umberto Eco, Serendipities: Language and Lunacy

“Let us forget for a moment that some of these false tales produced positive effects, while others produced horror and shame. All created something, for better or worse. Nothing in their success is inexplicable. What represents a problem is rather the way they managed to replace other tales that today we consider true.”
― Umberto Eco, Serendipities: Language and Lunacy

“At most, recognizing that our history was inspired by many tales we now recognize as false should make us alert, ready to call constantly into question the very tales we believe true, because the criterion of the wisdom of the community is based on constant awareness of the fallibility of our learning.”
― Umberto Eco, Serendipities: Language and Lunacy

“I lacked the courage to investigate the weaknesses of the wicked, because I discovered they are the same as the weaknesses of the saintly.”
― Umberto Eco, Postscript to the Name of the Rose

“For three things concur in creating beauty: first of all integrity or perfection, and for this reason we consider ugly all incomplete things; then proper proportion or consonance; and finally clarity and light, and in fact we call beautiful those things of definite color.”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“His mouth was almost incapable of managing a smile, and altogether he gave the impression of dealing with the pain of existence out of some sort of distasteful duty.”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“I began writing in March of 1978, prodded by a seminal idea: I felt like poisoning a monk.”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“After all, the fundamental question of philosophy (like that of psychoanalysis) is the same as the question of the detective novel: who is guilty?”
― Umberto Eco, Postscript to the Name of the Rose

“The translations usually render the statement along the lines of “how are they to believe in Him of whom they have not heard,” but the “of” does not belong. The reading is literally “how are they to believe Him whom they have not heard?”
― Tim Gallant, Exchanging the Glory: Idolatry and Homosexuality in Romans 1

“What we learn, then, is that the glory of God does not promote a “worm theology” (God is glorious, and therefore men are of no consequence whatsoever). God is the God of glory, and He is so glorious that He imparts a reflective glory upon the human beings made in His own image and likeness.”
― Tim Gallant, Exchanging the Glory: Idolatry and Homosexuality in Romans 1

“They can still see and taste and smell, and they can still make logical deductions and inductions—again, rebellion usually robs men neither of their physical senses, nor of their intelligence. It robs them of their fundamental wisdom, which is not the same thing.”
― Tim Gallant, Exchanging the Glory: Idolatry and Homosexuality in Romans 1

“Knowledge and intelligence have to do with the ability to recognize and grasp facts. Genuine wisdom has to do with the discernment to make proper judgments and the presuppositions required to do so.”
― Tim Gallant, Exchanging the Glory: Idolatry and Homosexuality in Romans 1

“No matter how keenly powerful the intellect, when founded upon suppression of the truth, it will reason its way into further darkness.”
― Tim Gallant, Exchanging the Glory: Idolatry and Homosexuality in Romans 1

“Just as freedom for a fish is freedom to live within the water and not on dry land, so freedom for the image-bearers of God is freedom to live within His orbit of glory and not within the vanity of some attempted (and impossible) independence. In the end, rebellion does not result in freedom from God (which is utterly impossible); it simply results in captivity to sin and death.”
― Tim Gallant, Exchanging the Glory: Idolatry and Homosexuality in Romans 1

“Contrary to a current popular notion, not all sins are equal (cf., e.g., 1 Cor 5:1; John 19:11; 1 John 5:16, 17). Hitler’s sins really are more serious than those of your neighbor down the street, despite what glib American religious slogans may have led you to believe.”
― Tim Gallant, Exchanging the Glory: Idolatry and Homosexuality in Romans 1

“If we were blind to all the other ways in which God is kind, joyful, and generous and loves to delight us, the physiology of human sexuality ought to set us straight.”
― Tim Gallant, Exchanging the Glory: Idolatry and Homosexuality in Romans 1

“From faith, unto faith: Here in the faithfulness of God, we find His glory and are liberated from our sin and our shame, one stage at a time, from one glory to another. For we have exchanged the folly of self-worship for the glory of the immortal God, and in His glory we find our own.”
― Tim Gallant, Exchanging the Glory: Idolatry and Homosexuality in Romans 1

“The humans reacted the way humans do when a philosopher is in their midst and there is, unfortunately, no hemlock at hand. They ignored him.”
― Jason Farley, Robo-Buffer, I Am Not Human

“Though James’s example in James 2 deals explicitly with the distinction made between the rich and poor, we can easily see that James’s concern can be extended to other superficial differences in the makeup of our communities, be it race, age, education, physical attractiveness or any other variation that may cause us to favor one over another, whether in formal and standardized ways or informal and subtle ones.”
― Jeffrey Meyers, Wisdom for Dissidents: The Epistle of James Through New Eyes