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It was brought home to me that two men may be as sincere, as earnest, as faithful, as uncompromising, and yet hold opinions far asunder as the poles. I have before said that I think the moment of this conviction is the most perilous crisis of our lives; for myself, it threw me at once on my own responsibility, and obliged me to look for myself at what men said, instead of simply accepting all because they said it. I begin to look about me to listen to what had to be said on many sides of the question, and try, as far as I could, to give it all fair hearing.
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Confessions Of A Sceptic

 

James Anthony Froude

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The division of the seamless garment of Christendom into separate nations or sovereign states, which today we accept as a matter of course, was then only beginning. And the idea that people belong to all sorts of different races, with boasts of racial "purity" or "superiority", is something that has come up practically within the memories of people still alive. Hence if the astronomer had been asked concerning his race and nation, he might have replied that he was a loyal son of the Church, but otherwise would scarcely have understood the questions. Even for us today it is not an easy question to answer. Torun was founded by Germans; its leading citizens, like those of Cracow, were mostly Germans. Hence the astronomer may well have been of German extraction. The possible connection of the family on both sides with Silesia does not prove much either way for its population was a mixed one. On the other hand, the ancestors, especially on the father's side, must have lived for so many generations under allegiance to the King of Poland as to be, for all practical purposes, Poles. And Copernicus followed the family tradition in siding with the Poles against the Germans in times of crisis. In any case, it was Poland, and Cracow above all, that first nourished the youthful genius of Copernicus. And since his death it is chiefly the Poles who have gloried in their share in him, and have cherished the renown his achievements have brought to their heroic and ill-starred nation.

 

Nicolaus Copernicus

 

Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life. The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question.

 

Samuel (novelist Butler

 

As to the Delhi affair, [i.e., the Indian Rebellion of 1857] it seems to me that the English ought to begin their retreat as soon as the rainy season has set in in real earnest. Being obliged for the present to hold the fort for you as the Tribune’s military correspondent I have taken it upon myself to put this forward. NB [nota bene; "take note"], on the supposition that the reports to date have been true. It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way.

 

Karl Marx

 

So, a man who is really earnest must begin with himself, he must be passively aware of all his thoughts, feelings and actions. Again, this is not a matter of time. There is no end to self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is only from moment to moment, and therefore there is a creative happiness from moment to moment.

 

Jiddu Krishnamurti

 

When I speak of reason or rationalism, all I mean is the conviction that we can learn through criticism of our mistakes and errors, especially through criticism by others, and eventually also through self-criticism. A rationalist is simply someone for whom it is more important to learn than to be proved right; someone who is willing to learn from others — not by simply taking over another's opinions, but by gladly allowing others to criticize his ideas and by gladly criticizing the ideas of others. The emphasis here is on the idea of criticism or, to be more precise, critical discussion. The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff. He is well aware that acceptance or rejection of an idea is never a purely rational matter; but he thinks that only critical discussion can give us the maturity to see an idea from more and more sides and to make a correct judgement of it.

 

Karl Popper