To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of critical thinking over blind belief or doubt.
Jerry Pournelle's quote highlights that both extreme skepticism and unconditional belief are convenient but ultimately avoid the crucial process of reflection and critical analysis. It suggests that engaging thoughtfully with ideas and questioning them leads to deeper understanding and knowledge, rather than taking an unexamined stance on either side.
In practice
This quote could be used in a philosophy class to discuss the value of skepticism.
I am sure it has been done with less, but you should be prepared to write and throw away a million words of finished material. By finished, I mean completed, done, ready to submit, and written as well as you know how at the time you wrote it. You may be ashamed of it later, but that's another story.
Many of us who have experienced psychedelics feel very much that they are sacred tools. They open spiritual awareness.
Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think heβs honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but heβs great in the eyes of others.
e quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle" ("and thence we came forth to see again the stars")
If the Barbarians are destroyed, who will we then be able to blame for the bad things?
We love the old saints, missionaries, martyrs, and reformers. Our Luthers, Bunyans, Wesleys and Asburys, etc... We will write their biographies, reverence their memories, frame their epitaphs, and build their monuments. We will do anything except imitate them. We cherish the last drop of their blood, but watch carefully over the first drop of our own.
Oh, they never lie. They dissemble, evade, prevaricate, confound, confuse, distract, obscure, subtly misrepresent and willfully misunderstand with what often appears to be a positively gleeful relish and are generally perfectly capable of contriving to give one an utterly unambiguous impression of their future course of action while in fact intending to do exactly the opposite, but they never lie. Perish the thought.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.