No machines will ever truly fully figure the brain out, because the brain's performance is constantly altered or else constrained by this inanimate, rogue artifact you can't control, namely, speech.
Tom WolfeRead
If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that people's political beliefs can change based on personal experiences with crime and justice.
Tom Wolfe's quote highlights the idea that one's political ideology is often shaped by personal experiences. A conservative may develop a tough stance on crime after being a victim, while a liberal might become more conservative if they face legal troubles. This reflects how individual situations can inform and sometimes shift broader political perspectives.
Themes
PoliticsConservatismLiberalismExperienceCrime
In practice
Example use cases
In a political debate to illustrate how personal experiences influence beliefs.
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I have discovered that for me - now, maybe it doesn't work for everybody - for me, it is much more effective to arrive at any situation as a man from Mars than to try to fit in.
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There has been a time on earth when poets had been young and dead and famous - and were men. But now the poet as the tragic child of grandeur and destiny had changed. The child of genius was a woman, now, and the man was gone.
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