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W Quotes

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All W Quotes

“We may say with truth and meaning, that governments are more or less republican, as they have more or less of the element of popular election and control in their composition; and believing as I do, that the mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights and especially that the evils flowing from the duperies of the people are less injurious than those from the egoism of their agents, I am a friend to that composition of government which has in it the most of this ingredient.”

“We may say, in a broad way, that Greek philosophy down to Aristotle expresses the mentality appropriate to the City State; that Stoicism is appropriate to a cosmopolitan despotism; that stochastic philosophy is an intellectual expression of the Church as an organization; that philosophy since Descartes, or at any rate since Locke, tends to embody the prejudices of the commercial middle class; and that Marxism and Fascism are the philosophies appropriate to the modern industrial state.”

“We may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindness about us at little expense. Some of them will fall on good ground, and grow up into benevolence in the minds of others, and all of them will bear fruit of happiness in the bosom whence they spring.”

“We may seem the weakest and most insignificant of all the Realms, but our strength comes in other ways. We have what no other race has: imagination. Any one of us, even the lowliest, can create worlds within ourselves; we can people them with the most extraordinary creatures, the most amazing inventions, the most incredible things. We can live in those worlds ourselves, if we choose; and in our own worlds, we can be as we want to be. Imagination is as close as we will ever be to godhead, Poison, for in imagination, we can create wonders.”

“We may sing, 'Crown Him Lord of all,' and rejoice in the tones of the loud-sounding organ and the deep melody of harmonious voices, but still we have done nothing until we have left the world and set our faces toward the city of God in hard practical reality. When faith becomes obedience then it is true faith indeed.”

“We may sometimes witness conversations at cross purposes and see how people hold muted dialogues of the deaf. They keep talking without really recognizing what the other is trying to bring home. Why should we not more engage in discussions with animals, promising much better results? Animals often appear to be much wiser, reasonable observers, and excellent listeners. (Let us say more and speak less)-Erik Pevernagie”

“We may start a journey with no batons to carry or pass, but we create them with the strength of our bones. Once they are ready to be birthed, we create our own batons, not only to pass but to first honour and nurture the marrow for it not to be easily broken. Not that it cannot be broken but to instill it with the spirit of sunrise for every sunset. Then we can pass the baton.”

“We may still insist that space, although mainly emptiness, is completely “contaminated” by all the forces in the Universe—particles, waves, and so on. Still, based on this deduction or inference, we cannot prove that what is curved is space since nothing remains nothing and cannot be transformed into something based on the laws of physics. If the Nothing does not convert into something, the curvature of space is impossible. To prove the curvature of nothing (space), we must prove that nothing can transform itself into something based on the laws of physics. Suppose we further insist that this is only a problem of linguistics and philosophy and not physics since we stated that space is how we define it and not as it is. This reasoning would be insufficient because we must first prove that actual space is what it is and not what we say it is to fit our arguments. There can be no answers to the most critical questions of contemporary science, physics, philosophy, and even religions if we are not as precise as possible, linguistically, experimentally, or in any other way. These questions appear to be self-evident, self-explanatory truths and axioms, yet they are neither self-evident nor clear and precise to reflect the actual underlying reality. If we are not as precise as possible, we create theories and paradigms presented as facts, although the starting premises are undefined and unanswered. However, if we do not answer the starting causes and premises, we cannot adequately describe the laws of nature, nor can we understand them. Regardless of how sure we are about space and the curvature of space, we still cannot claim we are correct without describing the nature of nothing. Without the Nothing, there can be no space. There will be an immediate argument, though, that the Nothing has no nature and, therefore, there is nothing to describe. The answer is that its passivity and lack of properties are its most potent “property” because they enable creation and existence. Without the Nothing or void, there is no creation and no existence. We converted nothing into something by our thoughts and language, using deduction or inference, and concluded that space is the consequence of this thought process, not the actual process. We applied our definite language to our indefinite “understanding,” ideas, or reasoning to prove the “fact.” However, the fact is or is not, regardless of our ideas, language, or reasoning. We must use the opposite and apply language to the facts rather than our understanding. Our understanding is limited, and facts are impersonal and independent of our knowledge. We cannot falsify the language to fit and understand the facts better. We cannot change facts or affect them with our ideas, but facts are verifiable up to a point. There are facts beyond the verifiable point by humans since human beings are limited. Still, language is verifiable, and our theories are both falsifiable and verifiable to a large extent.”

“We may take as our guide, here, John Dewey's observation that the content of a lesson is the least important thing about learning. As he wrote in Experience and Education, "Perhaps the greatest of all pedagogical fallacies is the notion that a person learns only what he is studying at the time. Collateral learning in the way of formation of enduring attitudes may be and often is more important than the spelling lesson, or the lesson in geography or history. For these attitudes are fundamentally what count in the future." In other words, the most important thing one learns is always something about *how* one learns. As Dewey wrote in another place, "We learn what we do.”