“If we learn from those only, of whose lives and opinions we altogether approve, we shall have to turn from many of the highest and profoundest minds.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 170
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John Lancaster Spalding 202
Catholic bishop 1840–1916Related quotes
“We are so vain that we value the opinion even of those whose opinions we find worthless.”
Aphorisms http://books.google.com/books?id=BeEnAAAAYAAJ&q="We+are+so+vain+that+we+value+the+opinion+even+of+those+whose+opinions+we+find+worthless".
Source: 1970s, Ecodynamics: A New Theory Of Societal Evolution, 1978, p. 42
“Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure.”
Kenneth Boulding (1971) "The diminishing returns of science" in: New Scientist. (March 25, 1971) Vol. 49, nr. 744. p. 682
1970s
Context: Perhaps the most difficult ethical problem of the scientific community arises not so much from conflict with other subcultures as from its own success. Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure.
Source: Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s, Rules and Representations (1980), p. 2-3 as cited in: Jerry Fodor (1983) Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology. p. 4.
1940s, Victory broadcast (1945)
Context: We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war.
A new era is upon us. Even the lesson of victory itself brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concepts of war.
“What matters most is that we learn from living.”
As quoted in Permission to Play : Taking Time to Renew Your Smile (2003) by Jill Murphy Long, p. 147