Society which scorns excellence in plumbing because it’s a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy.
Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
~ John W. Gardner,
Society which scorns excellence in plumbing because it’s a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. ~ John W. Gardner,
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”
Jawed Naqvi • The crooked timber of Modi’s India
RP added
Emmanuel Kant
“It’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.”
-- Paul Graham
-- Paul Graham
X. It’s what’s happening
CKT added
People know, or dimly feel, that if thinking is not kept pure and keen, and if respect for the world of the mind is no longer operative, ships and automobiles will soon cease to run right, the engineer’s slide rule and the computations of banks and stock exchanges will forfeit validity and authority, and chaos will ensue.
Hermann Hesse • The Glass Bead Game: (Magister Ludi) A Novel
It is difficult to overstate the advantage of intensely thinking about things in a world coated with a film of unthinking inertia. But it is also difficult to convey.
phoebe and added
No one hates truth who loves beauty.
Dee Hock • Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 2
"What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character
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