“It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous.
Resign yourself to be the fool you are…
… We must always take risks. That is our destiny…”

Source: The Cocktail Party

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous. Resign yourself to be the fool you are… … We must always take risks…" by T.S. Eliot?
T.S. Eliot photo
T.S. Eliot 270
20th century English author 1888–1965

Related quotes

Anne Rice photo
Richard Feynman photo

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

" Cargo Cult Science http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm", adapted from a 1974 Caltech commencement address; also published in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, p. 343
Variant: The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.

Bertrand Russell photo

“Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"The Science to Save Us from Science," The New York Times Magazine (19 March 1950)
1950s
Context: All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can only be refuted by science: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.

“Then you must reconcile yourself to the fact that something is always hurt by any change. If you do this, you will not be hurt yourself.”

Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) American speculative fiction writer

Source: Power & Light

Taisen Deshimaru photo

“You must not take out your sword because if you try to kill someone, you must die for it yourself. What you must do instead is kill yourself, kill your own mind.”

Taisen Deshimaru (1914–1982) Japanese Buddhist monk

As quoted in A Galaxy Not So Far Away : Writers and Artists on Twenty-five Years of Star Wars (2002) by Glenn Kenny, p. 99

Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
Adolph Freiherr Knigge photo

“Learn to take on the tone of whatever company you find yourself in.”

Lerne den Ton der Gesellschaft anzunehmen, in der du dich befindest.
Über den Umgang mit Menschen (1788)

Christopher Hitchens photo

“Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Christopher Hitchens vs. William Dembski, 18/11/2010 ( closing remarks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwgYYxfpPC0)
2010s, 2010
Context: When Socrates was sentenced to death, for his philosophical investigations and his blasphemy for challenging the Gods of the city and he accepted his death. He did say "well, if we're lucky perhaps I'll be able to hold a conversation with other great thinkers and philosophers and doubters too", in other words that the discussion about what is good, what is beautiful, what is noble and what is pure and what is true can always go on. Why is that important, why would I like to do that? Because that is the only conversation worth having. And whether it goes on or not after I die, I don't know, but I do know that it is the conversation I want to have while I am still alive. Which means that for me, the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can't give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don't know anything like enough yet. That I haven't understood enough, that I can't know enough, that I'm always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn't have it any other way. And I urge you to look at those of you that tell you (at your age) that that you are dead until you believe as they do. (What a terrible thing to be telling to children.) And that you can only live by accepting an absolute authority. Don't think of that as a gift, think of it as a poison chalice. Push it aside no matter how tempting it is. Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.

Related topics