“These fellows, knowing the extravagant gullibility of the age, set their wits to work in the imagination of improbable possibilities — of odd accidents, as they term them; but to a reflecting intellect (like mine," I added, in parenthesis, putting my forefinger unconsciously to the side of my nose,) "to a contemplative understanding such as I myself possess, it seems evident at once that the marvelous increase of late in these 'odd accidents' is by far the oddest accident of all. For my own part, I intend to believe nothing henceforward that has anything of the 'singular' about it.”
"The Angel Of The Odd: An Extravaganza".
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "These fellows, knowing the extravagant gullibility of the age, set their wits to work in the imagination of improbable …" by Edgar Allan Poe?
Edgar Allan Poe 126
American author, poet, editor and literary critic 1809–1849Related quotes
Josef Albers
(1888–1976) German-American artist and educator
Homage to the square' (1964), Oral history interview with Josef Albers' (1968)
“My life seemed to be a series of events and accidents. Yet when I look back I see a pattern.”
Benoît Mandelbrot
(1924–2010) Polish-born, French and American mathematician
New Scientist interview (2004)
Frida Kahlo
(1907–1954) Mexican painter
Quote in Imagen de Frida Kahlo by Gisèle Freund in Novedades (Mexico City) (10 June 1951)
1946 - 1953
Sarah Kane
(1971–1999) playwright from England
Bertrand Russell
(1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Essay Do We Survive Death? (1936)
1930s
Context: It is only when we think abstractly that we have such a high opinion of man. Of men in the concrete, most of us think the vast majority very bad. Civilized states spend more than half their revenue on killing each other's citizens. Consider the long history of the activities inspired by moral fervour: human sacrifices, persecutions of heretics, witch-hunts, pogroms leading up to wholesale extermination by poison gases … Are these abominations, and the ethical doctrines by which they are prompted, really evidence of an intelligent Creator? And can we really wish that the men who practised them should live for ever? The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident; but if it is the outcome of a deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis.