Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[WT Sharpe]

.....Now, I say, the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good, and only in this light (a point of view natural to every one, and one which every one exacts from others as a duty) does it give us pleasure with an attendant claim to the agreement of every one else, whereupon the mind becomes conscious of a certain ennoblement and elevation above mere sensibility to pleasure from impressions of sense, and also appraises the worth of others on the score of a like maxim of their judgment.
..........— Immanuel Kant (1724 –1804), German philosopher. The Critique of Judgment (1790),translated by James Creed Meredith. "Beauty as the symbol of morality."

[WT Sharpe]

.....For most sages, the wise way was the way of conventional wisdom, and the foolish way was the path of disregarding conventional wisdom. Jesus reversed this: he spoke of the broad way that led to destruction not as gross wickedness or flagrant foolishness, but as the way of conventional wisdom. He directly attacked the central values of his social world's conventional wisdom: family, wealth, honor, purity, and religiosity. All were sanctified by tradition, and their importance was part of the taken-for-granted world.
.....It was against these values that some of his most radical sayings were directed. In that culture, the family (which was patriarchal) was the primary social unit, the center of both identity and material security, and a "good" family was one of the blessings of God. Yet Jesus spoke of leaving family and even of "hating" family. Indeed, his words "Call no man on earth your father, for you have one Father, who is in heaven" may very well be directed against the patriarchal family, which as the primary social unit in that world was a microcosm of a hierarchical system. If so, this is a fascinating instance of Jesus using the image of God as Father in a way that subverted patriarchy.
..........— Marcus Borg (1942 - ), American Biblical scholar, author, Fellow of the Jesus Seminar, Hundere Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University. Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (1994).

[Arturo]

This thread reminds me a situation when a sentence from a classic drama was quoted most appropriately.
We had a new subject in the third year of university. The professor started talking and we did not understand anything. There was a word though that was present in each and every sentence: method. Method this, method that, method, method, method...
My friend, with pain on his face, said:

Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.

My reaction was something like this:

[WT Sharpe]

.....Anybody who hates dogs and babies can’t be all bad.
..........— Leo Rosten. Said of W. C. Fields at a 1939 Hollywood "roast." Leo Rosten, The Power of Positive Nonsense (MaGraw-Hill, 1977). Quoted in Tad Tuleja, Fabulous Fallacies: More Than 300 Popular Beliefs That Are Not True (The Stonesong Press, Inc., 1982).

[WT Sharpe]

.....And why did God demand the sacrifice of a sheep? I will tell you; because priests love mutton.
..........— Col. Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899), American lawyer, orator, freethinker. Lectures of RG Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why" (this lecture was first delivered in Chicago April 25, 1881).

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

.....And why did God demand the sacrifice of a sheep? I will tell you; because priests love mutton.
..........— Col. Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899), American lawyer, orator, freethinker. Lectures of RG Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why" (this lecture was first delivered in Chicago April 25, 1881).

Ha!

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Ha!

I once heard a Reform rabbi in a course he taught refer to the sacrifices as "bar-b-ques". Puts a different perspective on things, doesn't it?

[WT Sharpe]

.....Thanks to the relativity of simultaneity, an event that lies in my past may yet be in your future, and vice versa: all that is required is that the event be far away, and that you and I be moving relative to one another. Many physicists, and quite a few philosophers, have come to see the four-dimensional spacetime of special relativity as evidence that past and future events are just as "real" as present events. Everything seems to be laid out all at once in a kind of block....
..........— Dan Falk (1966 - ), Canadian science journalist, broadcaster, author. In Search of Time: The Science of a Curious Dimension (2008).

[Paegan2246]

Out of Catallus

COME and let us live my Dear,
Let us love and never fear,
What the sourest Fathers say:
Brightest Sol that dies today
Lives again as blithe tomorrow,
But if we dark sons of sorrow
Set; o then, how long a Night
Shuts the Eyes of our short light!
Then let amorous kisses dwell
On our lips, begin to tell
A Thousand, and a Hundred, score
A Hundred, and a Thousand more,
Till another Thousand smother
That, and that wipe off another.
Thus at last when we have numb'red
Many a Thousand, many a Hundred;
We'll confound the reckoning quite,
And lose ourselves in wild delight:
While our joys so multiply,
As shall mock the envious eye.

- this is a translation of the poem from Italian

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Paegan2246

Out of Catallus

COME and let us live my Dear,
Let us love and never fear,
What the sourest Fathers say:
Brightest Sol that dies today
Lives again as blithe tomorrow,
But if we dark sons of sorrow
Set; o then, how long a Night
Shuts the Eyes of our short light!
Then let amorous kisses dwell
On our lips, begin to tell
A Thousand, and a Hundred, score
A Hundred, and a Thousand more,
Till another Thousand smother
That, and that wipe off another.
Thus at last when we have numb'red
Many a Thousand, many a Hundred;
We'll confound the reckoning quite,
And lose ourselves in wild delight:
While our joys so multiply,
As shall mock the envious eye.

- this is a translation of the poem from Italian

Thanks for that, and Welcome to MobileRead, Paegan2246!

[Paegan2246]

Thanks...I've been spending my time hear reading all the interesting threads. What a great place to spend time.

---Susan

[John F]

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt" - Bertrand Russel

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Paegan2246

Thanks...I've been spending my time hear reading all the interesting threads. What a great place to spend time.

---Susan

Yes it is and it is taking away from my reading time.

Welcome!

[troymc]

Originally Posted by John F

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt" - Bertrand Russel

I love that quote. Reminds me of US elections...


Troy

[WT Sharpe]

.....These, then, are my last words to you: Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create that fact.
..........— William James (1842 – 1910), American psychologist and philosopher. The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897), "Is Life Worth Living?"