Source: Emotional amoral egoism (2008), p.15
“It is a predisposition of human nature to consider an unpleasant idea untrue, and then it is easy to find arguments against it.”
Source: A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Sigmund Freud 147
Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psycho… 1856–1939Related quotes
'Last Generation': A Response http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/last-generation-a-response/, New York Times, June 16, 2010.
“That maxim, it’s not an argument against atheism—it’s an argument against foxholes.”
Source: Towing Jehovah (1994), Chapter 8, “Famine” (p. 213)
Peace and the Public Mind (1935)
Context: The fact that men are naturally quarrelsome is presumed to be an argument against such institutions as the League. But it is precisely the fact of the natural pugnacity of man that makes such institutions necessary. If men were naturally and easily capable of being their own judges, always able to see the other's case, never got into panics, never lost their heads, never lost their tempers and called it patriotism — why, then we should not want a League. But neither should we want in that case most of our national apparatus of government either — parliaments, congresses, courts, police, ten commandments. These are all means by which we deal with the unruly element in human nature.
[Wild animals endure illness, injury, and starvation. We should help., December 14, 2015, Vox, https://www.vox.com/2015/12/14/9873012/wild-animals-suffering]
“Mr. Ingleby: You don't need an argument for buying butter. It's a natural, human instinct.”
Murder Must Advertise (1933)
Language Education in a Knowledge Context (1980)
Context: Of writing that is filled with mechanical and grammatical error, as compared with writing that conforms to the rules of standard edited English. Surely, we do not want to say that there is a necessary correlation between mechanical and editorial accuracy and intellectual substance. There are many books that are mechanically faultless but which contain untrue, unclear, or even nonsensical ideas. Carefully edited writing tells us, not that the writer speaks truly, but that he or she grasps... the manner in which knowledge is usually expressed. The most devastating argument against a paper that is marred by grammatical and rhetorical error is that the writer does not understand the subject.
Source: The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois (2003), p. 10
undated quotes, The Daily Practice of Painting, Writings (1962-1993)