Ideology knows the answer before the question has been asked. Principles are something different: a set of values that have to be adapted to circumstances but not compromised away.
George PackerRead
Everyone finds justification for his or her views in logic and analysis, but a personal philosophy often emerges from some archaic part of the mind, an early idea of how the world should be.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Personal beliefs are influenced more by deep-seated ideas than by rational analysis.
This quote suggests that while individuals may rely on logic and analysis to defend their beliefs, these views often stem from ancient, instinctive notions that dictate their understanding of how the world operates. It highlights the conflict between rational thought and the subconscious influences that shape our philosophies.
Themes
PhilosophyBeliefsMindLogicAnalysisWorldview
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about personal beliefs, this quote can illustrate how our views may not be purely logical.
More from George Packer
All quotes βAt the heart of the matter is a battle between wish and fear. Fear generally proves stronger than a wish, but it leaves a taste of disappointment on the tongue.
George PackerRead
As America has grown less economically equal, a citizen's ability to move upward has fallen behind that of citizens in other Western democracies. We are no longer the country where anyone can become anything.
George PackerRead
The invisibility of work and workers in the digital age is as consequential as the rise of the assembly line and, later, the service economy.
George PackerRead
Abstract sympathy with the working class as an economic entity is easy, but the feeling can vanish on contact with actual members of the group, who often arrive with disturbing beliefs and powerful resentments - who might not sound or look like people urban progressives want to know.
George PackerRead
Even while writing about foreign places, I have been in a way writing about America, because that's the subject that interests me the most. I'm attached to it, critical, but it's definitely my country, and maybe even more so when I'm overseas.
George PackerRead
Similar quotes
When I was writing The Satanic Verses, if you had asked me about the phenomenon that we all now know as radical Islam, I wouldn't have had much to say. As recently as the mid-1980s, it didn't seem to be a big deal.
Salman RushdieRead
I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left. ALGERNON: We have. JACK: I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about? ALGERNON: The fools? Oh! about the clever people of course. JACK: What fools.
Oscar WildeRead
A foundation in Christ was and is always to be a protection in days "when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you." In such days as we are now in--and will more or less always be in--the storms of life "shall have no power over you... because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall." (Helaman 5:12)
Jeffrey R. HollandRead
The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real beginning of the 21st century and the Third Millennium.
Arthur C. ClarkeRead
When I was researching my book 'The 33 Strategies of War', I studied Napoleon extensively and I found myself wanting to ask Napoleon questions about things he did, and if was I interpreting his actions correctly.
Robert GreeneRead
We make an idol of truth itself; for truth apart from charity is not God, but His image and idol, which we must neither love nor worship.
Blaise PascalRead