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“In fact, it is by no means certain that the purpose of Plato or of Aristotle, as Fārābī understood it, required the actualization of the best political order or of the virtuous city. Fārābī adumbrates the problem by making a distinction between Socrates’ investigations and Plato’s investigations, as well as between “the way of Socrates” and the way adopted eventually by Plato. “The science and the art of Socrates” which is to be found in Plato’s Laws, is only a part of Plato’s, the other part being “the science and the art of Timaeus” which is to be found in the Timaeus. “The way of Socrates” is characterized by the emphasis on “the scientific investigation of justice and the virtues,” whereas the art of Plato is meant to supply “the science of the essence of every being” and hence especially the science of the divine and on the natural things. The difference between the way of Socrates and the way of Plato points back to the difference between the attitude of the two men toward the actual cities. The crucial difficulty was created by the political or social status of philosophy: in the nations and cities of Plato’s time, there was no freedom of teaching and of investigation. Socrates was therefore confronted with the alternative, whether he should choose security and life, and thus conform with the false opinions and the wrong way of life of his fellow-citizens, or else non-conformity and death. Socrates chose non-conformity and death. Plato found a solution to the problem posed by the fate of Socrates, in founding the virtuous city in speech: only in that “other city” can man reach his perfection. Yet, according to Fārābī, Plato “repeated” his account of the way of Socrates and he “repeated” the mention of the vulgar of the cities and nations which existed in his time. The repetition amounts to a considerable modification of the first statement, or to a correction of the Socratic way. The Platonic way, as distinguished from the Socratic way, is a combination of the way of Socrates with the way of Thrasymachus; for the intransigent way of Socrates is appropriate only for the philosopher’s dealing with the elite, whereas the way of Thrasymachus, which is both more and less exacting than the former, is appropriate for his dealing with the vulgar. What Fārābī suggests is that by combining the way of Socrates with the way of Thrasymachus, Plato avoided the conflict with the vulgar and thus the fate of Socrates. Accordingly, the revolutionary quest for the other city ceased to be necessary: Plato substituted it for a more constructive way of action, namely, the gradual replacement of the accepted opinions by the truth or an approximation of the truth. The replacement of the accepted opinions could not be gradual, if it were not accompanied by a provisional acceptance of the accepted opinions: as Fārābī elsewhere declares, conformity with the opinions of the religious community in which one is brought up, is a necessary qualification for the future philosopher. The replacement of the accepted opinions could not be gradual if it were not accompanied by the suggestion of opinions which, while pointing toward the truth, do not too flagrantly contradict the accepted opinions. We may say that Fārābī’s Plato eventually replaces the philosopher-king who rules openly in the virtuous city, by the secret kingship of the philosopher who, being “a perfect man” precisely because he is an “investigator,” lives privately as a member of an imperfect society which he tries to humanize within the limits of the possible.”

“In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.”

“In fact, it might be more accurate to speak of “le Sardegne,” as in plural, instead of “la Sardegna,” a singular entity, with a singu- lar culture or set of ways. The “fundamental misunderstanding” in the Mediterranean, as historian Abulafia wrote in The Great Sea, was the illusive search for some sense of unity and clarity in such a place. Instead, he suggested, “we should note diversity,” among the shores in a “constant state of flux.”

“In fact, it was the religion of Calvin of which Sandy felt deprived, or rather a specified recognition of it. She desired this birthright; something definite to reject. It pervaded the place in proportion as it was unacknowledged. In some ways the most real and rooted people whom Sandy knew were Miss Gaunt and the Kerr sisters who made no evasions about their believe that Gold had planned for practically everybody before they were born an nasty surprise when they died. Later, when Sandy read John Calvin, she found that although popular conceptions of Calvinism were sometimes mistaken, in this particular there was no mistake, indeed it was but a mild understanding of the case, he having made it God's pleasure to implant in certain people an erroneous since of joy and salvation, so that their surprise at the end might be the nastier.”

“In fact, looking at the data for the blackbody radiation (passive heat emissions) of many experiments, it cannot be assured that they aren't already naturally splintered across timelines, because they already agree with Mynt's formula better than Planck's law. The means that the sun not only holds us in orbit, it connects us in time.”

“In fact no one recognizes the happiest moment of their lives as they are living it. It may well be that, in a moment of joy, one might sincerely believe that they are living that golden instant "now," even having lived such a moment before, but whatever they say, in one part of their hearts they still believe in the certainty of a happier moment to come. Because how could anyone, and particularly anyone who is still young, carry on with the belief that everything could only get worse: If a person is happy enough to think he has reached the happiest moment of his life, he will be hopeful enough to believe his future will be just as beautiful, more so.”

“In fact, one of the main lessons to be learned from the collapses of the Maya, Anasazi, Easter Islanders, and those other past societies (as well as from the recent collapse of the Soviet Union) is that a society's steep decline may begin only a decade or two after the society reaches its peak numbers, wealth, and power. In that respect, the trajectories of the societies that we have discussed are unlike the usual courses of individual human lives, which decline in a prolonged senescence. The reason is simple: maximum population, wealth, resource consumption, and waste production mean maximum environmental impact, approaching the limit where impact outstrips resources. On reflection, it's no surprise that declines of societies tend to follow swiftly on their peaks.”

“In fact quite generally, commercial advertising is fundamentally an effort to undermine markets. We should recognize that. If you’ve taken an economics course, you know that markets are supposed to be based on informed consumers making rational choices. You take a look at the first ad you see on television and ask yourself … is that it’s purpose? No it’s not. It’s to create uninformed consumers making irrational choices. And these same institutions run political campaigns. It’s pretty much the same: you have to undermine democracy by trying to get uninformed people to make irrational choices.”