"What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like, and immorality is what they dislike."
"A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men."
"Haint't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?"
Huck Finn
"People don't ask for facts in making up their minds. They would rather have one good, soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen facts."
" . . . the human race is divided politically into one wise man, nine knaves, and ninety fools out of every hundred. that is, by an optimistic observer. The nine knaves assemble themselves under the banner of the most knavish among them, and become 'politicians': the wise man stands out because he knows he is hopelessly outnumbered, and devotes himself to poetry, mathematics, or philosophy; while the ninety fools plod off behind the banners of the nine villains, according to fancy, into the labyrinths of chicanery, malice, and warfare."
3 comments:
“The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.”
CMaritz1978
A. A. Milne
Good one . . . I've added to my collection of such pearls of wisdom.
i love the BKS quote. i have some concerns about the 'stupidity' of the majority. hard to argue in a country that would 'elect' [out of only 2 possibilities] a george bush, twice. but i've known [and at times been] too often the reverse of that--the notion that whatever is popular is bad, whatver mot people think is stupid. thus i, being immensely intelligent, must always be 'different.'
capitalism in the form of advertising manipulates this wonderfully. 'you're different than the rest of them--that' why you [drink this, drive that, wear this lipstick....] of course the logic of this would suggest that the product will never sell, since most consumers are too stupid to it; but oh how seductive to those of us who pride ourselves on being special, smarter, etc......
i have always found it hard but important to try to avoid that thinking and really decide for myself what i believe, want, etc, to whatever extent we're capable of doing that....
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