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Intellectualism Quotes

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Intellectualism Quotes

“What have we left to dream about? The clouds are no longer the charioted servants of the sun, nor does he any more bathe his glowing brow in the bath of Thetis; the rainbow has ceased to be the messenger of the Gods, and hunger longer their awful voice, warning man of that which is to come. We have the sun which has been weighed and measured, but not understood; we have the assemblage of the planets, the congregation of the stars, and the yet unshackled ministration of the winds: - such is the list of our ignorance.”

ImaginationDreamsMagicIntellectualismMary ShelleyOn Ghosts
Author:Mary Shelley
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“Water has to be the right temperature, For it to appease our human thirst. Too cold, it'll give you frost-bite, Too hot, and it'll burn your throat. Intellect has to be rightly moderated, For it to push mind and society upward. Too little, it facilitates superstition, Too much, and it turns the mind cold.”

FactsHumanismIntelligenceIntellectExistentialismSuperstitionRational ThinkingIntellectualismLogical ThinkingScience Poetry
Book:Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World
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“Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls. Books, not weapons. Morality, not corruption. Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance.”

WisdomSchoolValuesPoliticsPresidentLeadershipEducationLeaderMoralKnowledgeDemocracyIgnoranceWallPoliticianMoralityWeaponsVoteLibraryCorruptionBridgesPresidentialLeadersEducateScholarElectionsSchoolsIntellectualismPublic EducationSuzy KassemPeacemakerInvestWallsRulerBuild BridgesPresidential Elections
Book:Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
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“The problem arises when a society respects its scholars lesser and lesser and replaces intellectualism with anti-intellectualism. Such society forces the most intellectual members of its, toward alienation and instead develops populism and irrationalism and then calls it anti-elitism. On the other hand, scholars, due to being undermined by the society, find any effort hopeless and isolate themselves into their work. For a scholar, personally, nothing changes because the scholar always is a scholar no matter having someone to share the knowledge with or not, but the true problem forms in the most ordinary sections of the society, which eventually creates an opportunity for propaganda, conspiracy theories, rhetoric, and bogus.”

ProblemKnowledgeSocietyIntellectualRespectPropagandaConspiracyScholarRhetoricAlienationIntellectualismConspiracy TheoriesAnti IntellectualismScholarsBogusIrrationalismUnderminedAnti Elitism
Author:Kambiz Shabankare
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“My four things I care about are truth, meaning, fitness and grace. [...] Sam [Harris] would like to make an argument that the better and more rational our thinking is, the more it can do everything that religion once did. [...] I think about my personal physics hero, Dirac – who was the guy who came up with the equation for the electron, less well-known than the Einstein equations but arguably even more beautiful...in order to predict that, he needed a positively-charged and a negatively-charged particle, and the only two known at the time were the electron and the proton to make up, let's say, a hydrogen atom. Well, the proton is quite a bit heavier than the electron and so he told the story that wasn't really true, where the proton was the anti-particle of the electron, and Heisenberg pointed out that that couldn't be because the masses are too far off and they have to be equal. Well, a short time later, the anti-electron -- the positron, that is -- was found, I guess by Anderson at Caltech in the early 30s and then an anti-proton was created some time later. So it turned out that the story had more meaning than the exact version of the story...so the story was sort of more true than the version of the story that was originally told. And I could tell you a similar story with Einstein, I could tell it to you with Darwin, who, you know, didn't fully understand the implications of his theory, as is evidenced by his screwing up a particular kind of orchid in his later work...not understanding that his theory completely explained that orchid! So there's all sorts of ways in which we get the...the truth wrong the first several times we try it, but the meaning of the story that we tell somehow remains intact. And I think that that's a very difficult lesson for people who just want to say, 'Look, I want to'...you know, Feynman would say, "If an experiment disagrees with you, then you're wrong' and it's a very appealing story to tell to people – but it's also worth noting that Feynman never got a physical law of nature and it may be that he was too wedded to this kind of rude judgment of the unforgiving. Imagine you were innovating in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. The first few times might not actually work. But if you told yourself the story, 'No, no, no – this is actually genius and it's working; no, you just lost three consecutive bouts' -- well, that may give you the ability to eventually perfect the move, perfect the technique, even though you were lying to yourself during the period in which it was being set up. It's a little bit like the difference between scaffolding and a building. And too often, people who are crazy about truth reject scaffolding, which is an intermediate stage in getting to the final truth.”

ThinkingReasonTruthScienceLogicThoughtMeaningThought ProvokingIntellectualism
Author:Eric R. Weinstein
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“Edward genially enough did not disagree with what I said, but he didn't seem to admit my point, either. I wanted to press him harder so I veered close enough to the ad hominem to point out that his life—the life of the mind, the life of the book collector and music lover and indeed of the gallery-goer, appreciator of the feminine and occasional boulevardier—would become simply unlivable and unthinkable in an Islamic republic. Again, he could accede politely to my point but carry on somehow as if nothing had been conceded. I came slowly to realize that with Edward, too, I was keeping two sets of books. We agreed on things like the first Palestinian intifadah, another event that took the Western press completely off guard, and we collaborated on a book of essays that asserted and defended Palestinian rights. This was in the now hard-to-remember time when all official recognition was withheld from the PLO. Together we debated Professor Bernard Lewis and Leon Wieseltier at a once-celebrated conference of the Middle East Studies Association in Cambridge in 1986, tossing and goring them somewhat in a duel over academic 'objectivity' in the wider discipline. But even then I was indistinctly aware that Edward didn't feel himself quite at liberty to say certain things, while at the same time feeling rather too much obliged to say certain other things. A low point was an almost uncritical profile of Yasser Arafat that he contributed to Interview magazine in the late 1980s.”

ArtMusicFeminismBooksDebateMiddle EastPalestineIntellectualismCambridgeTheocracyIsraeli Palestinian ConflictPalestiniansArafat1980sEdward SaidAd Hominem1986IntifadaMiddle Eastern StudiesInterview MagazineBernard LewisIslamic RepublicFirst IntifadaLeon Wieseltier
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“Abandon all antiquated atrocities of superstitious stupidity, as well as newage intellectual puerility - only then you shall develop the wholesome insight into what's right and what's wrong - or better yet - what's kind, what's not.”

KindnessIgnoranceMoralityEnlightenmentHumanismInsightHumanitarianSuperstitionRight And WrongIntellectualism
Book:Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth
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“Unless you know how to use facts like a decent human being, you are better off without facts - just like, unless you know how to interpret the scripture like a decent human being, you are better off without a scripture.”

HumanismFundamentalismScience And ReligionIntellectualismReligious ExtremismLogical ThinkingHumanitarian ScientistBible InterpretationTheology And Philosophy
Book:Sin Dios Sí Hay Divinidad: The Pastor Who Never Was
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“If you think four little alphabets, w-o-k-e, can define civilized human life, you are as dumb as those you consider un-woke. It is another way to codify righteousness, just like the church does with the term "born again". Be human my friend - beyond wokeness - beyond religiousness - beyond intellectualism and all forms of binarism and sectarianism.”

IgnorancePrejudiceBrainy QuotesHumanismOnenessNondualityIntellectualismWokeSectarianismNonbinary
Book:Solo Standing on Guard: Life Before Law
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“Facts and Belief (The Sonnet) No belief is worth losing your humanity over, No intellect is worth losing your kindness over. Facts, faith, reason, religion all come later, First and foremost we must humanize our behavior. If a belief or intellect makes you a better person, More power to your belief or intellect I say. But if they become a hindrance to your humanity, Throw it immediately like poison far, far away. Beliefs have cast shadows of wars throughout history, Facts have provided weapons for those wars. Then again beliefs have taught us to love our neighbor, Facts have helped us fight calamity and disorders. Let all beliefs and facts be guided by a warm heart. Warmth alone will make our world fit for human birth.”

FaithBeliefKindnessTheologyReasoningBigotrySonnetIntellectualismHumanist PoetryAnti Intellectualism
Book:Handcrafted Humanity: 100 Sonnets For A Blunderful World
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“Love Alone Triumphs (The Sonnet) Great people have often said, Truth alone triumphs. I am no great but a plain human, So I say, love alone triumphs. Truth may require intellect, Inquiry requires some cynicism. To be loving needs none of that, Love lights up the darkest chasm. Keep your intellect if you desire, Explore further the arc of truth. But all the discovery means nothing, If countless souls go without food. It is far better to be an insane lover, Than to be a heartless discoverer.”

ReasonHumanityKindnessIntellectWarmthCynicismSonnetRational ThinkingIntellectualismPursuit Of Truth
Book:Gente Mente Adelante: Prejudice Conquered is World Conquered
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“Scientists and inventors of the USA (especially in the so-called "blue state" that voted overwhelmingly against Trump) have to think long and hard whether they want to continue research that will help their government remain the world's superpower. All the scientists who worked in and for Germany in the 1930s lived to regret that they directly helped a sociopath like Hitler harm millions of people. Let us not repeat the same mistakes over and over again.”

WarScienceSufferingFreedomHistoryTechnologyStrengthMadnessMurderMathematicsSlaveryKillingIllnessProsperityInsanityStatisticsManipulationFascismHolocaustEngineeringDictatorAtrocitiesIntellectualismHitlerIntellectualsWorld PowerMathsPsychopathySociopathySciencesDoomed To Repeat It
Author:Piero Scaruffi
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“Nothing in my view is more reprehensible than those habits of mind in the intellectual that induce avoidance, that characteristic turning away from a difficult and principled position, which you know to be the right one, but which you decide not to take. You do not want to appear too political; you are afraid of seeming controversial; you want to keep a reputation for being balanced, objective, moderate; your hope is to be asked back, to consult, to be on a board or prestigious committee, and so to remain within the responsible mainstream; someday you hope to get an honorary degree, a big prize, perhaps even an ambassadorship. For an intellectual these habits of mind are corrupting par excellence. If anything can denature, neutralize, and finally kill a passionate intellectual life it is the internalization of such habits. Personally I have encountered them in one of the toughest of all contemporary issues, Palestine, where fear of speaking out about one of the greatest injustices in modern history has hobbled, blinkered, muzzled many who know the truth and are in a position to serve it. For despite the abuse and vilification that any outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights and self-determination earns for him or herself, the truth deserves to be spoken, represented by an unafraid and compassionate intellectual.”

CompassionIntellectualMainstreamPalestinePrestigeIntellectualismIntellectual LifeControvers
Author:Edward W. Said
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