People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others. 10
Blaise Pascal
» Blaise Pascal - all quotes »
When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving natural effects, we are not willing to receive good reasons when they are discovered. 96
Blaise Pascal
All languages and literatures are full of general observations on life, both as to what it is, and how to conduct oneself in it; observations which everybody knows, which everybody repeats, or hears with acquiescence, which are received as truisms, yet of which most people first truly learn the meaning when experience, generally of a painful kind, has made it a reality to them. How often, when smarting under some unforeseen misfortune or disappointment, does a person call to mind some proverb or common saying, familiar to him all his life, the meaning of which, if he had ever before felt it as he does now, would have saved him from the calamity. There are indeed reasons for this, other than the absence of discussion; there are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realised until personal experience has brought it home. But much more of the meaning even of these would have been understood, and what was understood would have been far more deeply impressed on the mind, if the man had been accustomed to hear it argued pro and con by people who did understand it. The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. (pp. 53-54)
John Stuart Mill
Majorities are generally wrong, if only in their reasons for being right.
George Saintsbury
I have a more fractal way of working, if you like, it is more like the way most people’s minds actually work. They don’t work in any linear way. When your mind wanders if you ever pay attention to some of the paths it takes, you generally find it’s these paths of association that can link all over the place. …The movements of the mind don’t follow any linear pattern, they can’t be explained with a mechanistic, clockwork view. You could find quantum models of how the mind works that might fit.
Alan Moore
My suggestion is that at each state the proper order of operation of the mind requires an overall grasp of what is generally known, not only in formal logical, mathematical terms, but also intuitively, in images, feelings, poetic usage of language, etc. (Perhaps we could say that this is what is involved in harmony between the 'left brain' and the 'right brain'). This kind of overall way of thinking is not only a fertile source of new theoretical ideas: it is needed for the human mind to function in a generally harmonious way, which could in turn help to make possible an orderly and stable society.
David Bohm
Pascal, Blaise
Passeroni, Giancarlo
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z