“Insults, scorn and ridicule are painful when we think about them. But they won't have any effect if we don't consider them important.”

Last update Nov. 30, 2023. History

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“If people don't think they have the power to solve their problems, they won't even think about how to solve them.”

Saul D. Alinsky (1909–1972) American community organizer and writer

Source: Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

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“We should reward people, not ridicule them, for thinking the impossible.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

"Learning to Expect the Unexpected," The New York Times (2004-04-08}

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“I think so badly of philosophy that I don't like to talk about it. … I do not want to say anything bad about my dear colleagues, but the profession of teacher of philosophy is a ridiculous one. We don't need a thousand of trained, and badly trained, philosophers — it is very silly. Actually most of them have nothing to say.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

As quoted in "At 90, and Still Dynamic : Revisiting Sir Karl Popper and Attending His Birthday Party" by Eugene Yue-Ching Ho, in Intellectus 23 (Jul-Sep 1992)

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“Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Source: 1910s, An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), ch. 5. <!-- pp. 41-42 -->
Context: It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.

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