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Mere Quotes

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Mere Quotes

“Those who think through possible outcomes with discipline, forge connections, in so doing, to other cosmi in which those outcomes are more than mere possibilities. Such a consciousness is measurably, quantitatively different from one that has not undertaken the same work and so, yes, is able to make correct decisions in an Emergence where an untrained mind would be of little use.”

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Book:Anathem
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“Liberal education, which consists in the constant intercourse with the greatest minds, is a training in the highest form of modesty. ... It is at the same time a training in boldness. ... It demands from us the boldness implied in the resolve to regard the accepted views as mere opinions, or to regard the average opinions as extreme opinions which are at least as likely to be wrong as the most strange or least popular opinions”

MindFormViewsOpinionStrangeDemandHighestTrainingRegardConstantMereAverageExtremesAcceptedResolveModestyBoldnessIntercourseImpliedPopular OpinionLiberal Education
Book:An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays
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“In most cases, to be reasonable means not to be obstinate, which in turn points to conformity with reality as it is. The principle of adjustment is taken for granted. When the idea of reason was conceived, it was intended to achieve more than the mere regulation of the relation between means and ends: it was regarded as the instrument for understanding the ends, for determining them.”

MeanIdeasEndsReasonRealityTurnsUnderstandingPrinciplesCasesTakenAchieveRelationInstrumentsMereGrantedReasonableConformityRegulationAdjustmentTaken For GrantedObstinate
Book:Eclipse of Reason
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“We call ourselves Homo sapiens--man the wise--because our intelligence is so important to us. For thousands of years, we have tried to understand how we think: that is, how a mere handful of matter can perceive, understand, predict, and manipulate a world far larger and more complicated than itself. The field of artificial intelligence, or AI, goes further still: it attempts not just to understand but also to build intelligent entities.”

ThinkingMenWorldYearsStillsImportantMatterWiseFieldsIntelligentMereComplicatedPerceiveArtificial IntelligenceArtificialEntityManipulateHandfulHomo Sapiens
Author:Stuart J. Russell
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“Great wits, like great beauties, look upon mere esteem as a flat insipid thing; nothing less than admiration will content them.”

LooksMereWitEsteemLook UpFlatsAdmirationInsipid
Book:Discourses on several important subjects: To which is added, Eight sermons preached at the Lady Moyer's lecture, in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London
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“Consider the death of Princess Diana. This accident involved an English citizen, with an Egyptian boyfriend, crashed in a French tunnel, driving a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian, who was drunk on Scotch whiskey, followed closely by Italian paparazzi, on Japanese motorcycles, and finally treated with Brazilian medicines by an American doctor. In this case, even leaving aside the fame of the victims, a mere neighborhood canvass would hardly have completed the forensic picture, as it might have a generation before.”

MightCasesGenerationsCarCitizensInvolvedFameDoctorsVictimMedicineMereLeavingAccidentsDrivenDrivingTreatedDrunkNeighborhoodItalianEnginesPrincessGlobalizationRoyaltyTunnelsWhiskeyMotorcycleDutchEgyptianPaparazziScotchDianaCar AccidentForensicsBelgiansDrunk DrivingScotch WhiskeyCanvassing
Author:Mark Riebling
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“Doing nothing about climate change is still a fairly common affliction, even in this day and age. What to do with those people, who are together threatening everybody's existence on this planet? Clearly we don't really think they should be blown up, that's just a joke for the mini-movie, but maybe a little amputating would be a good place to start?”

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Author:Franny Armstrong
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“Our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.”

PeopleKindRealFactsFeelingsSinTakenMereCharityToleranceSpiteSinnerSuperiorityIndulgenceParodyPresumptionMerrimentDeep Feeling
Book:Christian Reflections
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“However much the creationist leaders might hammer away at their scientific and philosophical points, they would be helpless and a laughing-stock if that were all they had. It is religion that recruits their squadrons. Tens of millions of Americans, who neither know nor understand the actual arguments for - of even against - evolution, march in the army of the night, their Bibles held high. And they are a strong and frightening force, impervious to, and immunized against, the feeble lance of mere reason.”

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Author:Isaac Asimov
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“The mere animal pleasure of travelling in a wild unexplored country is also great. The effect of travel on a man whose heart is in the right place is that the mind is made more self-reliant: it becomes more confident of its own resources, there is greater presence of mind.”

MenMindHeartMadeSelfCountryPleasureAnimalGreaterEffectsResourcesMereRight PlaceUnexploredSelf ReliantPresence Of Mind
Book:The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868
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“Yet the leaf is the chief product and phenomenon of Life: this is a green world, with animals comparatively few and small, and all dependent on the leaves. By leaves we live. Some people have strange ideas that they live by money. They think energy is generated by the circulation of coins. Whereas the world is mainly a vast leaf colony, growing on and forming a leafy soil, not a mere mineral mass: and we live not by the jingling of our coins, but by the fullness of our harvests.”

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Author:Patrick Geddes
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“Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great many minds, is always of more strength, than what is produced by the mere workings of any one mind, which, of itself, can do very little. There is not so poor a book in the world that would not be a prodigious effort were it wrought out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators.”

WorldWritingMindHumansLittlesBookCan DoPoorEffortTheoryDiscoveryBuiltTestsMereAidsGreat MenHuman ExperienceInvestigatorsContradictingProdigious
Book:Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales
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“In the same way the eminence attaching to the mere possession of great wealth disappoints us nine times out of ten, especially if the wealth has been accumulated rapidly. For great wealth is accumulated rapidly by cunning or chance, or a mixture of the two. Cunning has nothing to do with high qualities; it is rather a presumption against them; while chance has nothing to do with them either. Therefore it is that men are always complaining after meeting So-and-so, that he seemed to be astonishingly stupid, though he made a million in ten years and started as a pauper.”

IfsMenWayYearsHas BeensMadeTwoPoliticsWealthChanceQualityMillionsEconomyStupidTenMeetingsMerePossessionComplainingNineLiberalismCunningMixturesDisappointPresumptionHigh QualityEminenceAlways Complaining
Author:Hilaire Belloc
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“One man in one mood will attack Industrial Capitalism for its destruction of beauty; another for its incompetence; another for the vileness of the men who chiefly prosper under it; another for its mere confusion and noise; another for its false values; it was until recently most fiercely attacked for its impoverishment of the workers, its margin of unemployment and the rest - indeed so fiercely that it was compelled to seek palliatives for the evil. With a mass of men it was attacked from a vague but strong sense of injustice; it allowed a few rich to exploit mankind.”

MenValuesEvilPoliticsStrongEconomyRichMankindHe ManMassCapitalismDestructionMereWorkersInjusticeMoodNoiseConfusionLiberalismOne ManVagueUnemploymentCompelledExploitsMarginsIncompetence
Author:Hilaire Belloc
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“A people among whom there is no habit of spontaneous action for a collective interest - who look habitually to their government to command or prompt them in all matters of joint concern - who expect to have everything done for them, except what can be made an affair of mere habit and routine - have their faculties only half developed; their education is defective in one of its most important branches.”

PeopleLooksMadeImportantMatterDoneWisdomGovernmentActionPoliticsInterestHalfEconomyHabitConcernMereAffairCommandBranchesLiberalismCollectivesFacultyRoutineSpontaneousJointsPromptsDefective
Book:Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy : in Two Volumes
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“Individual initiative alone and the mere free play of competition could never assure successful development. One must avoid the risk of increasing still more the wealth of the rich and the dominion of the strong, whilst leaving the poor in their misery and adding to the servitude of the oppressed.”

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Book:On the development of peoples
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“It goes beyond mere 'acknowledgment' of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context. In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience.”

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Author:Barbara Brandriff Crabb
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“The purpose prong of the Lemon test requires that a government activity have a secular purpose. That requirement is not satisfied, however, by the mere existence of some secular purpose, however dominated by religious purposes... The proper inquiry under the purpose prong of Lemon, I submit, is whether the government intends to convey a message of endorsement or disapproval of religion.”

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Author:Sandra Day O'Connor
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“I do not expect that the mere fact that I was once an evangelical apologist and now see things differently should itself count as evidence that I must be right. That would be the genetic fallacy. It would be just as erroneous to think that John Rankin must be right in having embraced evangelical Christianity since he had once been an agnostic Unitarian and repudiated it for the Christian faith.”

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Author:Robert M. Price
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“As for Christianity's alleged concern with truth, Christian faith is to free inquiry what the Mafia is to free enterprise. Christianity may be represented as a competitor in the realm of ideas to be considered on the basis of its merits, but this is mere disguise. Like the Mafia, if Christianity fails to defeat its competition by legitimate means (which is a forgone conclusion), it resorts to strong-arm tactics. Have faith or be damned - this biblical doctrine alone is enough to exclude Christianity from the domain of reason.”

IfsMayMeanIdeasReasonEnoughChristianStrongChristianityFailingAtheismArmsConcernBasesCompetitionMereDefeatPositive AtheismDoctrineConclusionMeritRealmsEnterpriseHave FaithBiblicalDisguiseInquiryCompetitorsDomainTacticsResortsMafiaChristian FaithFree EnterpriseStrong Arms
Book:Atheism: The Case Against God
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“Our contention is not for mere toleration, but for absolute liberty. There is a wide difference between toleration and liberty. Toleration implies that somebody falsely claims the right to tolerate. Toleration is a concession, while liberty is a right. Toleration is a matter of expediency, while liberty is a matter of principle.”

MatterDifferencesLibertyPrinciplesAtheismClaimsAbsolutesMerePositive AtheismWideTolerateContentionConcessionsTolerationExpediency
Author:George W Truett
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