“When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
Source: Abolishing Christianity and Other Essays

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Jonathan Swift141

Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet 1667–1745

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“This evil fortune, which generally attends extraordinary men in the management of great affairs, has been imputed to divers causes, that need not be here set down, when so obvious a one occurs, if what a certain writer observes be true, that when a great genius appears in the world the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

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“Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies, and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him.”

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“But you must give him some sign, some sign that you love him… or he'll never be a man. All his life he'll feel guilty and alone unless you release him.”

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“It is easy to be religious when religion is in fashion; but it is an evidence of strong faith and resolution to swim against a stream to heaven, and to appear for God when no one else appears for Him.”

Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Theologician from Wales

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“The Filipino is a true cosmopolitan. From him the world may expect something new and distinctive.”

Epifanio de los Santos (1871–1928) Filipino politician

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Context: We Filipinos are the most promising people in the world. We have unheard-of-possibilities. There have never been a people similarly situated. Here we are in the Orient with our Oriental thoughts and sentiments, but living amid a civilization more Western than was ever known in The East. The Philippines is the only country where East meets West. The Filipino is a true cosmopolitan. From him the world may expect something new and distinctive.

“Heaven may not be a possible world when you take it in isolation by itself. It may be that the only way in which God could actualize a heaven of free creatures all worshiping Him and not falling into sin would be by having, so to speak, this run-up to it, this advance life during which there is a veil of decision-making in which some people choose for God and some people against God. Otherwise you don't know that heaven is an actualizable world. You have no way of knowing that possibility.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

[The Craig-Bradley Debate: Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?, 1994, http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/craig-bradley0.html], quoted in [William Lane Craig vs. Ray Bradley (debate review), Luke, Muehlhauser, 2011-04-27, Common Sense Atheism, http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=2523, 2011-10-21]

“For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image. And whether we are to line up with him or against him, it is well that we should know all we can concerning his nature and potentialities.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

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“The emergence of abstract art is a sign that there are still men of feeling in the world. Men who know how to respect and follow their inner feelings, no matter how irrational or absurd they may first appear. From their perspective, it is the social world that tends to appear irrational and absurd.”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

1951; as cited in 'Robert Motherwell, American Painter and Printmaker' https://www.theartstory.org/artist-motherwell-robert-life-and-legacy.htm#writings_and_ideas_header, on 'Artstory' <br class="br">from his responding at the 1951 MoMA symposium, in which several artists were asked to respond to the prompt 'What Abstract Art Means to Me' <br class="br">1950s

“Freud was, after all, a genius. You can tell that because people still hate him.”

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“When a man fell into his anecdotage, it was a sign for him to retire.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870), Ch. 28.

“When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”

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Jonathan Swift141

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