One cannot state too clearly that a doctrinal formulation is perfect, not because it exhausts the infinite Truth on the plane of logic, which is impossible, but because it realizes a mental form capable of communicating, to whoever is intellectually apt to receive it, a ray of that Truth, and thereby a virtuality of the total Truth. This explains why the traditional doctrines are always apparently naive, at least from the point of view of philosophers − that is to say, of men who do not understand that the goal and sufficient reason of wisdom do not lie on the plane of its formal affirmation; and that, by definition, there is no common measure and no continuity between thought, whose operations have no more than a symbolic value, and pure Truth, which is identical with That which "is" and thereby includes him who thinks.
Frithjof SchuonRelated topics
affirmation common communicating continuity definition doctrinal form formal formulation impossible men lie measure perfect plane point pure ray reason receive state thought traditional truth value view wisdom operationsRelated quotes
A man with nothing left to lose is a very dangerous man and his energy/anger can be focused toward a common/righteous goal. What I'm asking you to do, then, is sit back and be honest with yourself. Do you have kids/wife? Would you back out at the last minute to care for the family? Are you interested in keeping your firearms for their current/future monetary value, or would you drag that '06 through rock, swamp and cactus...to get off the needed shot? In short, I'm not looking for talkers, I'm looking for fighters...And if you are a fed, think twice. Think twice about the Constitution you are supposedly enforcing (isn't "enforcing freedom" an oxymoron?) and think twice about catching us with our guard down – you will lose just like Degan did – and your family will lose. [.
Timothy McVeigh
It is impossible for any man, when the most favourable circumstances concur, to acquire sufficient knowledge and strength of mind to discharge the duties of a king, entrusted with uncontrolled power; how then must they be violated when his very elevation is an insuperable bar to the attainment of either wisdom or virtue; when all the feelings of a man are stifled by flattery, and reflection shut out by pleasure! Surely it is madness to make the fate of thousands depend on the caprice of a weak fellow creature, whose very station sinks him NECESSARILY below the meanest of his subjects! But one power should not be thrown down to exalt another--for all power intoxicates weak man; and its abuse proves, that the more equality there is established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society.
Mary Wollstonecraft
In its most general form and from the point of view of physics, love is the internal, affectively apprehended, aspect of the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world, centre to centre. This is how it has been understood by the great philosophers from Plato, the poet, to Nicolas of Cusa and other representatives of frigid scholasticism. Once this definition has been accepted, it gives rise to a series of important consequences. Love is power of producing inter-centric relationship. It is present, therefore (at least in a rudimentary state), in all the natural centres, living and pre-living, which make up the world; and it represents, too, the most profound, most direct, and most creative form of inter-action that it is possible to conceive between those centres. Love, in fact, is the expression and the agent of universal synthesis.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
...the stereographic projection of the spherical surface. From the north pole P we draw radial lines to project every point of the surface of the sphere upon the horizontal plane [below, perpendicular to a line joining it to P and the sphere's center]. In general this transformation is unique and continuous, although the metrical relations are distorted; for the point P, however, it shows a singularity. Point P is mapped upon the infinite; i.e., no finitely located point of the plane corresponds to it. It can be shown that every transformation possesses a singularity in at least one point. The surface of the sphere is therefore called topologically different from the plane. Only a "sphere without a north pole" [point] would be topologically equivalent to a plane. ...such a sphere has a point-shaped hole without a boundary and is no longer a closed surface.
Hans Reichenbach
The particular conception of ideology operates primarily with a psychology of interests, while the total conception uses a more formal functional analysis, without any reference to motivations, confining itself to an objective description of the structural differences in minds operating in different social settings. The former assumes that this or that interest is the cause of a given lie or deception. The latter presupposes simply that there is a correspondence between a given social situation and a given perspective, point of view, or apperception mass. In this case, while an analysis of constellations of interests may often be necessary it is not to establish causal connections but to characterize the total situation. Thus interest psychology tends to be displaced by an analysis of the correspondence between the situation to be known and the forms of knowledge.
Karl Mannheim