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Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence. I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.
“The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.” ~~ L. P. Hartley: The Go-Between
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence. I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.
“Always treat persons (including yourself) and ends in themselves, never merely as a means to your own ends.” ~~Immanuel Kant
If you have been playing along at home, you no doubt realize that this is a second quote from Kant very soon after the first:
“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
I discovered this quote in a Wondrium philosophy course I was watching, Think like a Stoic: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World. In my first posting I commented that it was a high brow version of the Golden Rule.
I went from watching the course on Stoic philosophy to another Wondrium course, The Big Questions of Philosophy which had today’s quote.
Both are statements of what philosophical types are calling Kant’s Categorical Imperatives which are “commands or moral laws all persons must follow, regardless of their desires or extenuating circumstances.”
The professor in the first course just put the quote out there. In the second course, the professor spent one whole class discussing Kant. Spoiler alert he is not a fan. However, he mentioned two or three times in the 30 minutes that Kant’s Categorical Imperative is not the Golden Rule, with a brief explanation as to why. Mainly, that the Golden Rule is more concerned with how the individual feels that any universality, i.e. self centered.
I can buy his arguments for my original Kant quote. It probably reflects my philosophical naivety more than anything else, but the second quote does not seem that far removed from the Golden Rule.
In any event, Kant’s approach to morality is a little too rigid for me. I am never sure if it is good or bad, but I live in the gray zone on many of these moral/ethical issues. One of the few lessons I have learned from life is that there are no certainties.
I’ll go back to being least serious in another post, I promise.
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence. I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.
“Bond, James Bond…”
“Oh, James, you’ve just killed lots and lots of people, and I’m horny as hell.”
~~ Paul Randolph Rush riffing on what ever Bond girl would be thinking if not saying
A wise-ass, but very to the point, comment he made to an email going around amongst my siblings and the 6th Rush Boy. Probably the best exposition of the 007 movies I have ever seen or heard.
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence. I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.
“We must believe in free will, we have no choice.” ~~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
Whether or not we actually have free will, whether or not we are actually agents acting freely, is a topic that philosophy and religion have been debating (hotly?) for millennia. Modern science seems to come down on the side of no way Jose. But for the sake of my own sanity I am going with Singer.
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence. I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.
“Consider at what price you sell your integrity; but please, for God’s sake, don’t sell it cheap.”~~ Epictetus
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence. I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.
“The difference between humans and animals? Animals would never allow the dumbest ones to lead the pack.” ~~Michael Haley
He was responding on X (formerly Twitter) with a photo of a wolf and this quote to denigrating remarks about his wife, Nikki Haley, and him made by tRump on that platform.
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” ~~Immanuel Kant
Obviously a high brow way of stating the Golden Rule, a concept that seems to permeate philosophical and religious thought. To see a listing of how this idea has been stated in many of the world religions follow this link: The Universality of the Golden Rule in the World Religions
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
“As we were driving, we saw a sign that said, ‘Watch for Rocks.’ Martha said it should read ‘Watch for Pretty Rocks.’ I told her she should write in her suggestion to the highway department, but she started saying it was a joke – just to get out of writing a simple letter! And I thought I was lazy!” ~~Jack Handey
** Señora has an absolute obsession with rocks
++ One of my ex-brother-in-laws had a game he played when his children were very young and just learning to read. He had them convinced that the signs that read “Watch for Falling Rocks” was about a crazed Native American that had escaped a mental institution… him and his half brother Leaping Deer.
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
“When I feed the poor they call me a saint; when I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist”. ~~Hélder Pessoa Câmara former Brazilian Catholic Archbishop
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
Former Uruguayan President, José Mujica, when asked why he lived as if he were poor, he insisted that he did not need to have more things to be happy.
“I am not a poor president. The poor are not those who have little, but those who need a lot. I do not live with poverty, I live with austerity, with renunciation. I need little to live well.” ~~ José Mujica
I am utterly fascinated by this man, a former president of Uruguay. As president of Uruguay he refused to live in the presidential palace, preferring to continue living in his home on a small farm on the outskirts of Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. Plus at that time he got around town in an old beat up blue VW Bug.
From Wikipedia:
“Mujica has been described as “the world’s humblest head of state” due to his austere lifestyle and his donation of around 90 percent of his $12,000 monthly salary to charities that benefit poor people and small entrepreneurs.An outspoken critic of capitalism’s focus on stockpiling material possessions which do not contribute to human happiness, he has been praised by the media and journalists for his philosophical ideologies; the Times Higher Education referred to him as the ‘philosopher president’ in 2015, a play on words of Plato’s conception of the philosopher king.”
Not only is he a politician, but he is also a deep thinking philosopher. The world could use more leaders like him.
I pulled this quote from an online Spanish review course I have been taking at 1001ReasonsToLearnSpanish. Below is the quote as I originally found it.
Cuando se le preguntaba por qué vivía como si fuera pobre, él insistía en que no le hacía falta tener más cosas para ser feliz. “Yo no soy un presidente pobre. Pobres no son los que tienen poco, sino los que necesitan mucho. Yo no vivo con pobreza, vivo con austeridad, con renunciamiento. Preciso poco para vivir bien”.
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day