A Quote by Ronald Fisher
The best causes tend to attract to their support the worst arguments, which seems to be equally true in the intellectual and in the moral sense.
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The objections to religion are of two sorts - intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow.
Words of divine consciousness: moral exaltation; lasting feelings of elevation, elation, joy; a quickening of the moral sense, which strikes one as more important than an intellectual understanding of things; an alignment of the universe along moral lines, not intellectual ones; a realization that the founding principle of existence is what we call love, which works itself out sometimes not clearly, not cleanly, not immediately, nonetheless ineluctably.
The method I take to do this is not yet very usual; for instead of using only comparative and superlative Words, and intellectual Arguments, I have taken the course (as a Specimen of the Political Arithmetic I have long aimed at) to express myself in Terms of Number, Weight, or Measure; to use only Arguments of Sense, and to consider only such Causes, as have visible Foundations in Nature.
Philosophers have very justly remarked that the only solid instruction is that which the pupil brings from his own depths; that the true instruction is not that which transmits notions wholly formed, but that which renders him capable of forming for himself good opinions. That which they have said in regard to the intellectual faculties applies equally to the moral faculties. There is for the soul a spontaneous culture, on which depends all the real progress in perfection.
The Republicans, in the various arguments, repeat exactly the same phrases one after another, with no sense of embarrassment, no sense of shame, no sense of intellectual integrity.
Generally speaking, I tend to think that whether a philosopher's views are true is a poor test of their quality. What matter are the arguments they give, and the insights those arguments inspire.
It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent; because the parts of that immovable space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses. Yet the thing is not altogether desperate; for we have some arguments to guide us, partly from the apparent motions, which are the differences of the true motions; partly from the forces, which are the causes and effects of the true motions.
You tend to think that your time is either the best or the worst, and then when you have a sense of history, you'll realize actually, no, there were times things were quite gusty in the world. I mean, just think, nowadays most people will say they support the advancement of women, woman has been equal, the fact that we're so aware of the gustiness, in a sense, also speaks about the heightening of our own sensitivity.
Our national fondness for celebrating the physical heroism of soldiers - the apparent readiness with which they sacrifice their lives to larger causes - eclipses the far less romantic displays of moral and intellectual fortitude that also distinguish so many of them. In turning them all into heroes, we have lost a sense of the individuality they also fight to preserve.
It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.
When people believe a conclusion is true, they are also very likely to believe arguments that appear to support it, even when these arguments are unsound.
The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.
Nature wishes that woman should attract man, yet she often cunningly moulds into her face a little sarcasm, which seems to say, 'Yes, I am willing to attract, but to attract a little better kind of a man than any I yet behold
On the moral plane, true friends enjoy the same protection as the sense of smell confers upon dogs. They scent the sorrow of their friends, they divine its causes, and they clasp it to their minds and hearts.
The safest and most suitable form of penance seems to be that which causes pain in the flesh but does not penetrate to the bones, that is, which causes suffering but not sickness.
The melancholy have the best sense of the comic, the opulent often the best sense of the rustic, the dissolute often the best sense of the moral, and the doubter often the best sense of the religious.
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