Conversation on Epictetus and Montaigne
Context: One, knowing the duties of man and being ignorant of his impotence, is lost in presumption, and that the other, knowing the impotence and being ignorant of the duty, falls into laxity; whence it seems that since the one leads to truth, the other to error, there would be formed from their alliance a perfect system of morals. But instead of this peace, nothing but war and a general ruin would result from their union; for the one establishing certainty, the other doubt, the one the greatness of man, the other his weakness, they would destroy the truths as well as the falsehoods of each other. So that they cannot subsist alone because of their defects, nor unite because of their opposition, and thus they break and destroy each other to give place to the truth of the Gospel. This it is that harmonizes the contrarieties by a wholly divine act, and uniting all that is true and expelling all that is false, thus makes of them a truly celestial wisdom in which those opposites accord that were incompatible in human doctrines.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 553.
Die Verehrung mächtiger unsichtbarer Wesen, welche dem hülflosen Menschen durch die natürliche, auf dem Bewusstsein seines Unvermögens gegründete Furcht abgenöthigt wurde, …
Book IV, Part 2, Section 3
Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793)
Eminent Indians (1947)
Source: Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights (1926), Ch. VI : Presumptive Rights, § 24, p. 62.
Original: L'ignorante pecca spesso di educazione, arroganza e presunzione. Per lui è normale comportarsi così perché non è abituato ad acquisire cultura, secondo lui nasce saggio e generalmente per la sua natura chiusa muore sempre insieme alla sua ignoranza.
Source: prevale.net
“Creators of history always play with our impotence and our ignorance.”
"Game III," p. 98
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “A Game”
“It is a Reasonable presumption that a man who sleeps upon his rights has not got much right.”
Ex parte Hall; In re Wood (1883), L. R. 23 C. D. 653.
Dr. Bock.
The Hospital (1971)
Context: When I say impotent, I mean I've lost even my desire to work. That's a hell of a lot more primal passion than sex. I've lost my reason for being. My purpose. The only thing I ever truly loved. … We have established the most enormous, medical entity ever conceived and people are sicker than ever! WE CURE NOTHING! WE HEAL NOTHING! The whole goddamn wretched world is strangulating in front of our eyes. That's what I mean when I say impotent. You don't know what the hell I'm talking about, do you?... I'm tired. I'm very tired, Miss Drummond. And I hurt. And I've got nothing going for me anymore. Can you understand that?... And you also understand that the only admissible matter left is death.
