Quotes, thoughts, and philosophy — a treasury of extraordinary ideas.

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Étienne de La Boétie quote about reason, good counsel, training, and virtueCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"There is in our souls some native seed of reason, which, if nourished by good counsel and training, flowers into virtue, but which, on the other hand, if unable to resist the vices surrounding it, is stifled and blighted." Étienne de La Boétie
Étienne de La Boétie quote about reason, good counsel, training, and virtueCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"There is in our souls some native seed of reason, which, if nourished by good counsel and training, flowers into virtue, but which, on the other hand, if unable to resist the vices surrounding it, is stifled and blighted." Étienne de La Boétie
Inspirational quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe about the power of commitment and boldnessCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would have never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Brian Tracy quote about how clear goals and big goals fuel achievement and drive successCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement. The bigger your goals and the clearer they are, the more excited you become about achieving them. The more you think about your goals, the greater becomes your inner drive and desire to accomplish them." Brian Tracy
Denis Diderot quote about acquiring knowledge through observation, reflection, and experimentationCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination." Denis Diderot
Sokrates quote about learning through questions and thinking independentlyCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"No one can teach, if by teaching we mean the transmission of knowledge, in any mechanical fashion, from one person to another. The most that can be done is that one person who is more knowledgeable than another can, by asking a series of questions, stimulate the other to think, and so cause him to learn for himself." Sokrates
Noam Chomsky quote about schools, education, and power structuresCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Far from creating independent thinkers, schools have always, throughout history, played an institutional role in a system of control and coercion. And once you are well educated you have already been socialized in ways that support the power structure, which, in turn, rewards you immensely." Noam Chomsky
Quote image featuring John Taylor Gatto on schools, standardization, and controlCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Schools were designed by Horace Mann and Barnard Sears and Harper of the University of Chicago and Thorndyke of Columbia Teachers College and some other men to be instruments of the scientific management of a mass population. Schools are intended to produce through the application of formulae, formulaic human beings whose behavior can be predicted and controlled." John Taylor Gatto
Quote by Paul Feyerabend on how propaganda shapes knowledge and truthCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"There are numerous sociological and historical case studies describing how opinions are established as "knowledge" in societies. For example, Paul Feyerabend explained in 1975 that the establishment of the heliocentric worldview was not based on new discoveries, but on a clever propaganda strategy of Galileo Galilei. According to Feyerabend, the representatives of the geocentric world view "did not recognize the propaganda value of predictions and dramatic shows, nor did they make use of the intellectual and social power of the newly created classes. They lost because they did not take advantage of existing opportunities."" Paul Feyerabend
Quote by Steven Weinberg about the International Space Station and manned spaceflightCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"The International Space Station is an orbital turkey....No important science has come out of it. I could almost say no science has come out of it. And I would go beyond that and say that the whole manned spaceflight program, which is so enormously expensive, has produced nothing of scientific value." Steven Weinberg
Quote by Max Planck about the importance of faith in scientific workCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with." Max Planck
Quote by Marcia Angell about the crisis in clinical research and medical guidelinesCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as editor of The New England Journal of Medicine" Marcia Angell
Quote by Richard Horton about issues in scientific literature and the dark side of scienceCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness" Richard Horton
Quote about the scientific method and guesswork by Dr. Michio KakuCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"In Science, we always say that you make observations you have a theory you make more observations and it’s a very very tedious process… WRONG! Nobody that I know of in my field, uses the so-called Scientific Method. In our field, it’s by the seat of your pants, it’s leaps of logic, it’s GUESSWORK." Dr. Michio Kaku
Quote about the largest mismatch between theory and experiment in science by Michio KakuCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Usually in science, if we're off by a factor of 2 or a factor of 10, we call that horrible. We say, something's wrong with the theory. We're off by a factor of 10! However, in cosmology, we're off by a factor of 10 to the 120th. That is one with 100 and 20 zeroes after it. This is the largest mismatch between theory and experiment in the history of science." Michio Kaku
Quote by Pope Pius XII on science, creation, and the existence of GodCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"In fact, it seems that present-day science, with one sweeping step back across millions of centuries, has succeeded in bearing witness to that primordial 'Fiat lux' Let there be light uttered at the moment when, along with matter, there burst forth from nothing a sea of light and radiation, while the particles of the chemical elements split and formed into millions of galaxies ... Hence, creation took place in time, therefore, there is a Creator, God exists. Although it is neither explicit nor complete, this is the reply we were awaiting from science, and which the present human generation is awaiting from it." Papst Pius XII
Paul Feyerabend quote about the scientific worldview and individual responsibilityCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"There is no "scientific worldview" just as there is no uniform enterprise "science" - except in the minds of metaphysicians, school masters, and scientists blinded by the achievements of their own particular niche... There is no objective principle that could direct us away from the supermarket "religion" or the supermarket "art" toward the more modern, and much more expensive supermarket "science." Besides, the search for such guidance would be in conflict with the idea of individual responsibility which allegedly is an important ingredient of a "rational" or scientific age." Paul Feyerabend
Neil deGrasse Tyson quote on science and guidance beyond scienceCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Some have asked me where scientists turn after science has yielded no clear solution. I tell these people what my grandfather Charles Darwin told me: roll back your eyes, contort your body, and let the dark lord Satan show you the way" Neil deGrasse Tyson
Alexander von Humboldt quote about the purpose of science and the dignity of mathematicsCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"One forgets that the sciences have an intrinsic purpose and loses sight of the truly literary interest, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Mathematics loses none of its dignity when regarded merely as an object of speculation, as inapplicable to solving practical problems." Alexander von Humboldt
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon quote about laws, authority, and freedomCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government." Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Erich Fromm quote about freedom, courage, and being yourselfCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"If other people do not understand our behavior-so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being 'asocial' or 'irrational' in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them." Erich Fromm
James M. Buchanan quote about inefficient government spending and resource useCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"You can get a coalition of senators from particular states in America, for example, who want to construct highways or dams or ports which may well be very inefficient. The taxes would be paid by the people over the whole country, but the benefits would go to the few people in those particular locations. This type of spending is a rather gross waste of resources that worsened over the years as the government has been allowed to do more particularized things." James M. Buchanan
Quote image featuring Charles Wright Mills on government and political economyCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a sort of automatic machine, regulated by the balancing of competing interests." Charles Wright Mills
Charles Wright Mills quote about power, wealth, celebrity, and access to major institutionsCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Power is not of a man. Wealth does not center in the person of the wealthy. Celebrity is not inherent in any personality. To be celebrated, to be wealthy, to have power requires access to major institutions." Charles Wright Mills
Albert Jay Nock quote image about economic and political meansCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of wealth; this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others; this is the political means." Albert Jay Nock
Eisenhower quote about inflation and its impact on social injusticeCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Inflation is not a Robin Hood, taking from the rich to give to the poor. Rather, it deals most cruelly with those who can least protect themselves. It strikes hardest those millions of our citizens whose incomes do not quickly rise with the cost of living. When prices soar, the pensioner and the widow see their security undermined, the man of thrift sees his savings melt away; the white collar worker, the minister, and the teacher see their standards of living dragged down." Eisenhower
David Graeber quote about violence, debt, and moralityCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"If history shows anything, it is that there's no better way to justify relations founded on violence, to make such relations seem moral, than by reframing them in the language of debt—above all, because it immediately makes it seem that it's the victim who's doing something wrong." David Graeber
Ludwig von Mises quote about bureaucracy, government offices, and administrative measuresCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Only to bureaucrats can the idea occur that establishing new offices, promulgating new decrees, and increasing the number of government employees alone can be described as positive and beneficial measures." Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises quote about the gold standard and inflationCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"The gold standard did not collapse. Governments abolished it in order to pave the way for inflation. The whole grim apparatus of oppression and coercion, policemen, customs guards, penal courts, prisons, in some countries even executioners, had to be put into action in order to destroy the gold standard." Ludwig von Mises