A Quote by George Orwell

What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy? — © George Orwell
What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?
When confronted with two courses of action I jot down on a piece of paper all the arguments in favor of each one, then on the opposite side I write the arguments against each one. Then by weighing the arguments pro and con and cancelling them out, one against the other, I take the course indicated by what remains.
The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself. They are in a lose/lose situation. If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are a scoundrel... if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot. So here is a dilemma which others have suffered before us, and for which as far as I can see there is simply no escape.
The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.
Are you distracted by outward cares? Then allow yourself a space of quiet wherein you can add to your knowledge of the Good and learn to curb your restlessness. Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement, and so continually renew yourself.
Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the Earth goes round the Sun; today, to believe the past is inalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.
I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech - the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don't convince me and that our civilization over a period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice.
A new danger now beset him [Grotius], the danger of becoming simply a venal pleader, a creature who grinds out arguments on this or that side, for this or that client: a mere legal beast of prey. Fortunately for himself and for the world he took a higher view of his life-work: his determination clearly was to make himself a thoroughly equipped jurist, and then, as he rose more and more in his profession, to use his powers for the good of his country and of mankind.
If someone else runs faster than you or makes more money than you or is more adept at anything, that doesn't mean you have lost. You are measuring yourself only against yourself and your tendencies not to do all that you are capable of doing.
Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic.
Golf is more exacting than racing, cards, speculation, or matrimony. In almost all other games you pit yourself against a mortal foe; in golf it is yourself against the world: no human being stays your progress as you drive your ball over the face of the globe.
Do you want to know the man against whom you have most reason to guard yourself? Your looking-glass will give you a very fair likeness of his face.
A man is more than one being in his life. If the last persists, why not the first? If there be a hereafter for his age, why not for his youth?
I may be a lunatic, but then, wasn't my lunacy caused by a monster that lurks at the bottom of every human mind? Those who call me a madman and spurn me may become lunatics tomorrow. They harbor the same monster.
'Study' was the cry that reverberated in the corridors of my mind. Study to enable yourself to face the arguments advanced by opposition. Study to arm yourself with arguments in favor of your cult. I began to study.
It is fairly clear that many of the arguments against proposition testing are really arguments against propositions themselves.
You cannot be sure that you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do.
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