“When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Nathaniel Hawthorne128

American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879) 1804–1864

Edykasawuli7

“How could she tell, he deceived her so well;
Pity, she'll be the last one to know.
Silence is golden, but my eyes still see;
Silence is golden, golden,
But my eyes still see.”

Bob Gaudio

Song Silence is Golden http://www.lyricsdownload.com/tremeloes-silence-is-golden-lyrics.html

“If I saw a glass of wine repeatedly presented to a man, and he took no notice of it, I should be apt to think that he was blind or uncivil. A juster philosophy might teach me rather to think that my eyes deceived me, and that the offer was not really what I conceived it to be.”

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) British political economist

Essay on the Principle of Population (1798; rev. through 1826)

“If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art, there is no doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would be more apt to succeed; but it is not the eye, it is the mind, which the painter of genius desires to address; nor will he waste a moment upon those smaller objects, which only serve to catch the sense, to divide the attention, and to counteract his great design of speaking to the heart.”

Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) English painter, specialising in portraits

Discourse no. 3; vol. 1, pp. 70-71.
Discourses on Art

“Plato … says a multitude can never philosophize and hence can never recognize the seriousness of philosophy or who really philosophizes. Attempting to influence the multitude results in forced prostitution.”

Allan Bloom (1930–1992) American philosopher, classicist, and academician

“Commerce and Culture,” p. 286.
Giants and Dwarfs (1990)

“We feel the necessity of deceiving ourselves, of even grossly deceiving ourselves, and of believing, when we are doing wrong, that we are doing right. When we do not succeed in reaching such persuasion, merely by sounding our own reason and conscience, we look about for something or some person to aid us in the attempt.”

Alexandre Vinet (1797–1847) Swiss theologian

Evangelical Meditations (1858)

“One who opens his eyes and sees. To be good at seeing. How difficult not to see anything but the visible. And nothing will be left but dust and manure. Attempting the impossible. Approach the mystery.”

Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist

Portuguese Notes (Gandon Editions Biography 1993).
Notebooks

“Deception, in turn, suggests morality: the morality of deceiving people into thinking something is so when it is not. […] The moral principle is this: whoever attempts to tame a part of a wicked problem, but not the whole, is morally wrong.”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Source: 1960s - 1970s, Guest editorial: Wicked problems (1967), p. 142 cited in: Rob Hundman (2010) Weerbarstig veranderen. p. 38

“If it were so, as conceited sagacity, proud of not being deceived, thinks, that we should believe nothing that we cannot see with our physical eyes, then we first and foremost ought to give up believing in love. … We can be deceived by believing what is untrue, but we certainly are also deceived by not believing what is true. … Which deception is more dangerous?”

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

Source: 1840s, Works of Love (1847), p. 5

“Conversation. — Because they have many of those ideas that, to be shown, have need of eyes, gestures, voice, a whole multitude of signs that the written word does not accompany. One sees the soul in operation.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

“When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.”

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