Existence (1956) p. 39; also published in The Discovery of Being : Writings in Existential Psychology (1983), Part III : Contributions to Therapy, Ch. 6 : To Be and Not to Be, p. 94
Existence (1958)
Context: It is interesting that the term mystic is used in this derogatory sense to mean anything we cannot segmentize and count. The odd belief prevails in our culture that a thing or experience is not real if we cannot make it mathematical, and that somehow it must be real if we can reduce it to numbers. But this means making an abstraction out of it … Modern Western man thus finds himself in the strange situation, after reducing something to an abstraction, of having then to persuade himself it is real. … the only experience we let ourselves believe in as real, is that which precisely is not.
“Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense.”
Why I Wrote 'The Crucible in The New Yorker (21 October 1996) https://archive.is/20130630000741/www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?020422fr_archive02
Context: Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.
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Arthur Miller 147
playwright from the United States 1915–2005Related quotes
Source: The Wisdom of the Heart (1951), "The Alcoholic Veteran with the Washboard Cranium", p. 122
Patrick L. McGuire, Her Strong Enchantments Failing (p. 93; this work is an essay about Anderson's story The Queen of Air and Darkness).
Short fiction, The Book of Poul Anderson (1975)
2005-05-23
Penn & Teller: Bullshit!
season 3 episode 5
Holier Than Thou
Television
2000s, 2005
undated quotes, The Daily Practice of Painting, Writings (1962-1993)
Introduction to Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Volume I (1991).
Speech at the National Press Club (2004)
“All our thoughts and beliefs are somehow hollow until they find expression in action.”
The Transition Timeline: for a local, resilient future, (2009), p. 167 http://www.darkoptimism.org/books.html#TheTransitionTimeline