“Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher
“Lack of manners is the sign of a hero.”
Source: Opium: The Diary of His Cure
Last update Oct. 12, 2024. History
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Jean Cocteau123
French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager … 1889–1963Related quotes
“Lack of clarity is always a sign of dishonesty.”
Celia Green (1935) British philosopher
The Decline and Fall of Science (1976)
“Jealousy and envy are the signs of lack of emotional control in your life.”
Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author
“The sign of a truly totalitarian culture is that important truths simply lack cognitive meaning”
Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist
letter to Alexander Cockburn (1 March 1990), later paraphrased in Deterring Democracy (1992) p. 345.
Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994
Context: The sign of a truly totalitarian culture is that important truths simply lack cognitive meaning and are interpretable only at the level of "Fuck You", so they can then elicit a perfectly predictable torrent of abuse in response. We've long ago reached that level.
Irving Kristol (1920–2009) American columnist, journalist, and writer
Wall Street Journal, November 18, 1985.
1980s
Lewis Thomas (1913–1993) American physician, poet and educator
"The Tucson Zoo", p. 10
The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1979)
Context: Everyone says, stay away from ants. They have no lessons for us; they are crazy little instruments, inhuman, incapable of controlling themselves, lacking manners, lacking souls. When they are massed together, all touching, exchanging bits of information held in their jaws like memoranda, they become a single animal. Look out for that. It is a debasement, a loss of individuality, a violation of human nature, an unnatural act.
Sometimes people argue this point of view seriously and with deep thought. Be individuals, solitary and selfish, is the message. Altruism, a jargon word for what used to be called love, is worse than weakness, it is sin, a violation of nature. Be separate. Do not be a social animal. But this is a hard argument to make convincingly when you have to depend on language to make it. You have to print out leaflets or publish books and get them bought and sent around, you have to turn up on television and catch the attention of millions of other human beings all at once, and then you have to say to all of them, all at once, all collected and paying attention: be solitary; do not depend on each other. You can’t do this and keep a straight face.
Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate
Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero As King
Context: To me, in these circumstances, that of "Hero-worship" becomes a fact inexpressibly precious; the most solacing fact one sees in the world at present. There is an everlasting hope in it for the management of the world. Had all traditions, arrangements, creeds, societies that men ever instituted, sunk away, this would remain. The certainty of Heroes being sent us; our faculty, our necessity, to reverence Heroes when sent: it shines like a polestar through smoke-clouds, dust-clouds, and all manner of down-rushing and conflagration.
Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS
Diary entry (November 1921), quoted in The Hidden Files (1992) by Derek Raymond
1920s