Address at Iona College (1984)
Context: How simple it seems now. We thought the Sermon on the Mount was a nice allegory and nothing more. What we didn't understand until we got to be a little older was that it was the whole answer, the whole truth. That the way — the only way — to succeed and to be happy is to learn those rules so basic that a shepherd's son could teach them to an ignorant flock without notes or formulae. <!-- p. 934
“We would do absolutely nothing. Now that's a blunt, truthful answer.”
When asked what a Labor government would do if Indonesia were to invade East Timor, in an interview three days before the invasion. Sydney Morning Herald (5 December 1975)
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Gough Whitlam 10
Australian politician, 21st Prime Minister of Australia 1916–2014Related quotes
“Poetry is nothing less than an aspiration to absolute truth.”
Interview wiyh Kieran Owens ' The Event Guide' December 2002
Other Quotes
2000s, Thus Spake Stallman (2000)
Context: Religious people often say that religion offers absolute certainty about right and wrong; "god tells them" what it is. Even supposing that the aforementioned gods exist, and that the believers really know what the gods think, that still does not provide certainty, because any being no matter how powerful can still be wrong. Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can. Injustice is happening now; suffering is happening now. We have choices to make now. To insist on absolute certainty before starting to apply ethics to life decisions is a way of choosing to be amoral.
“If it weren‘t for the Church, we‘d be dead by now” https://acninternational.org/werent-church-wed-dead-now/ (6 February 2018)
Reported in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) edited by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 225
1880s
“All we know of the truth is that the absolute truth, such as it is, is beyond our reach.”
De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) (1440)
“What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.”
Of Truth
Essays (1625)