Scott > Scott's Quotes

“When a person expresses a view which seems to us obviously absurd... we should try to understand how it ever came to seem true [to them]. This exercise of imagination enlarges the scope of our thinking and helps us to realize how foolish many of our own cherished prejudices will seem to an age which has a different temper of mind.”
― Bertrand Russell

“Any logically coherent body of doctrine is sure to be in part painful and contrary to current prejudices”
― Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy

“...the Churches, everywhere, opposed as long as they could practically every innovation that made for an increase of happiness or knowledge here on Earth”
― Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”
― Richard P. Feynman

“People do not always remember that politics, economics, and social organization generally, belong in the realm of means, not ends... a society does not, or at least should not, exist to satisfy an external survey, but to bring a good life to the individuals who compose it.”
― Bertrand Russell, individual and social ethics

“Institutions that do not recognize that their officers' incentives are not consistent with the goals of the institution will necessarily be corrupted in the long run.”
― Ken Binmore

“All the grand sources of human suffering are in a great degree conquerable by human care and effort; and though their conquest is grievously slow, and though a long succession of generations will perish in the breach before the conquest is completed - when this world becomes all that, if will and knowledge were not wanting, it might easily be made - yet every mind to bear a part however small and inconspicuous, in the endeavor, will draw a noble enjoyment from the contest itself, and would not for any brine consent to be without.”
― John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism

“When a great genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

[Thoughts on Various Subjects]”
― Jonathan Swift , Abolishing Christianity and Other Essays

“No living organism can exist isolated from the biotic and abiotic factors that surround it, and its evolutionary success or failure is governed by the extent to which it responds to these factors.”
― John E Hill

“Most of us, it seems, have a strong inclination to accept the peculiarities of our social environment as if they were "natural".... that we live in a charmed circle of unchanging taboos, of laws and customs which are felt to be as inevitable as the rising of the sun.”
― Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies

“Never can an authority admit that the intellectually courageous - those who dare to defy his authority - may be the most valuable type.”
― Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies

“Institutions for the selection of the outstanding can hardly be devised... for it will always tend to eliminate initiative and originality, and, more generally, qualities which are unusual and unexpected. [this] is a criticism of the tendency to burden institutions, especially educational institutions, with the impossible task of selecting the best... this tendency transforma our educational system into a race-course... instead of encouraging the student to devote himself to his studies for the sake of studying, instead of encouraging in him a real love for his subject and for inquiry, he is encouraged to study for the sake of his personal career; he is led to acquire only such knowledge as is serviceable in getting him over the hurdles which he must clear for the sake of his advancement.”
― Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies