“To recognize that some of the things our culture believes are not true imposes on us the duty of finding out which are true and which are not.”

“Western Civ,” p. 22.
Giants and Dwarfs (1990)

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Allan Bloom29

American philosopher, classicist, and academician 1930–1992

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“The thing is to understand myself: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. That is what I now recognize as the most important thing.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

“It is an extraordinary thing that this civilization, which wears out our nerves and exacts an almost painful effort from us in all our doings, should be at great pains to spare the mass of people that intellectual effort which is the only measure of true culture.”

Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) French writer

Source: Défense des Lettres [In Defense of Letters] (1937), p.

“William James used to preach the "will-to-believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will-to-doubt." None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda

“In contrast to Breton we believe that — behind the false ethical and aesthetic, indeed metaphysical understandings which are out of contact with the vital interest of "man" — we find the real, the materialistic ethics and aesthetics. One includes our needs, the other is an expression of our sensual desires. It is exactly in order to liberate the true ethics and the true aesthetics that we make use of "automatism."”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

1949 - 1958, Speech to the Penguins' (1949)

“The true realist is he who believes in both God and the Devil, and is prepared to attempt, with humility, to sort out some corner of the extraordinary tangle of their works which is our world. He cannot use his feeling alone, he must use his intellect.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

Source: 1880s, Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885), Ch. 67.

“If culture is capable of anything, then it is finding that which unites us all. And there are so many things which unite people.”

Krzysztof Kieślowski (1941–1996) Polish film director and screenwriter

As quoted in "Kieślowski's Many Colours" by Patrick Abrahamsson, in Oxford University Student newspaper (2 June 1995) — republished at Musicolog.com http://www.musicolog.com/kieslowski_manycolours.asp#.Vt_PAsdSj8s <br class="br">Context: If there is anything worthwhile doing for the sake of culture, then it is touching on subject matters and situations which link people, and not those that divide people. There are too many things in the world which divide people, such as religion, politics, history, and nationalism. If culture is capable of anything, then it is finding that which unites us all. And there are so many things which unite people. It doesn't matter who you are or who I am, if your tooth aches or mine, it's still the same pain. Feelings are what link people together, because the word "love" has the same meaning for everybody. Or "fear", or "suffering". We all fear the same way and the same things. And we all love in the same way. That's why I tell about these things, because in all other things I immediately find division.

“We too, must shatter the mirrors. We must look in to ourselves and root out the distortions until that thing which we know in our hearts is perfect and true, stands before us.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

“Myths which are believed in tend to become true.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

“It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent; because the parts of that immovable space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses. Yet the thing is not altogether desperate; for we have some arguments to guide us, partly from the apparent motions, which are the differences of the true motions; partly from the forces, which are the causes and effects of the true motions.”

Isaac Newton book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Definitions - Scholium
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)

“To recognize that some of the things our culture believes are not true imposes on us the duty of finding out which are true and which are not.”

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Allan Bloom29

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