George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
Review of Indian Mosaic by Mark Channing, in The Listener (15 July 1936)
Introduction to The Path (1999), based on ideas presented in Thinking and Destiny (1946) by Harold W. Percival, p. 11
Context: It is my conviction that basic Reality is not all that perplexing. What seems difficult to assimilate are the manifold details of Reality, not its fundamental elements.
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
Review of Indian Mosaic by Mark Channing, in The Listener (15 July 1936)
Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic
Source: The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932), Ch. 2 : Adult Constraint and Moral Realism
Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic
Book 1, Chapter 4 “On Joining the Gypsies” (pp. 188-189)
The Elric Cycle, The Revenge of the Rose (1991)
“Unreasoning optimism is a fundamental element of childishness.”
N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods
Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 10 (p. 237)
Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician
On the Hypotheses which lie at the Bases of Geometry (1873)
P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist
The Paris Review interview (1982)
Context: I think if she comes from anywhere that has a name, it is out of myth. And myth has been my study and joy ever since — oh, the age, I would think... of three. I’ve studied it all my life. No culture can satisfactorily move along its forward course without its myths, which are its teachings, its fundamental dealing with the truth of things, and the one reality that underlies everything. <!-- Yes, in that way you could say that it was teaching, but in no way deliberately doing so.
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
About Beauty
(1857/58)
Diederik Aerts (1953) Belgian theoretical physicist
Aerts, D. (1996). " Relativity theory: what is reality? http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/aerts/publications/1996RelReal.pdf". Foundations of Physics, 26, pp. 1627-1644
Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician
On the Hypotheses which lie at the Bases of Geometry (1873)
Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist
"We Need a Radical Left," The Nation (29 June 1998)
Context: By definition, the conventional wisdom of the day is widely accepted, continually reiterated and regarded not as ideology but as reality itself. Rebelling against "reality," even when its limitations are clearly perceived, is always difficult. It means deciding things can be different and ought to be different; that your own perceptions are right and the experts and authorities wrong; that your discontent is legitimate and not merely evidence of selfishness, failure or refusal to grow up. Recognizing that "reality" is not inevitable makes it more painful; subversive thoughts provoke the urge to subversive action. But such action has consequences — rebels risk losing their jobs, failing in school, incurring the wrath of parents and spouses, suffering social ostracism. Often vociferous conservatism is sheer defensiveness: People are afraid to be suckers, to get their hopes up, to rethink their hard-won adjustments, to be branded bad or crazy.