“The idea of motherland is not a false idea, but it is a little idea, and one which must remain little.”

— Henri Barbusse

Light (1919), Ch. XX The Cult
Context: The idea of motherland is not a false idea, but it is a little idea, and one which must remain little.
There is only one common good. There is only one moral duty, only one truth, and every man is the shining recipient and guardian of it. The present understanding of the idea of motherland divides all these great ideas, cuts them into pieces, specializes them within impenetrable circles. We meet as many national truths as we do nations, and as many national duties, and as many national interests and rights — and they are antagonistic to each other.

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Henri Barbusse 197

French novelist 1873–1935

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Tommy Douglas 1961. http://web.archive.org/web/20041020022338/http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/top_ten/nominee/douglas-tommy.html
Mes amis, surveillez bien les petites gens qui ont des idées http://web.archive.org/web/20041029193928/http://www.cbc.ca/grandscanadiens/top_ten/nominee/douglas-tommy.html.

“My purpose here is to denounce an idea which seems to be dangerous and false.”

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Context: My purpose here is to denounce an idea which seems to be dangerous and false. … Revolutionary trade unionists and orthodox communists are at one in considering everything that is purely theoretical as bourgeois. … The culture of a socialist society would be a synthesis of theory and practice; but to synthesize is not the same as to confuse together; it is only contraries that can be synthesized. … Marx’s principal glory is to have rescued the study of societies not only from Utopianism but also and at the same time from empiricism. … Humanity cannot progress by importing into theoretical study the processes of blind routine and haphazard experiment by which production has so long been dominated. … The true relation between theory and application only appears when theoretical research has been purged of all empiricism.

“An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Incoherency of New Ideas
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“When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes and that is my idea.”

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As quoted in Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein & Co. (1974) by James Mellow

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Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803–1862) painter from the Northern Netherlands

(original Dutch, citaat van B.C. Koekkoek:) De vrije kunstenaar moet ook den moed bezitten zich van zijn eersten ideën te kunnen losrukken, want de ondervinding leert ons, dat dezelve niet altijd zuiver, ja dikwijls valsch zijn.
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Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 60e

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Source: Manhood of Humanity (1921), p. 71. Chapter: What is Man?
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“The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

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“The idea of motherland is not a false idea, but it is a little idea, and one which must remain little.”

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Henri Barbusse 197

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