Civilization is the art of living in towns of such size the everyone does not know everyone else.
Julian JaynesRead
Our sense of justice depends on our sense of time. Justice is a phenomenon only of consciousness, because time spread out in a spatial succession is its very essence. And this is possible only in a spatial metaphor of time.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Justice is shaped by our understanding of time, as it exists within our consciousness.
Julian Jaynes explores the idea that our perception of justice is inherently linked to our perception of time. He argues that justice is not just a social or moral concept but is deeply rooted in the way we experience time, suggesting that consciousness itself plays a pivotal role in how we interpret and deliver justice, making it a phenomenon that relies on a metaphorical understanding of time as a spatial experience.
Themes
JusticeConsciousnessTimePhilosophyEssence
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of timely justice in legal proceedings.
More from Julian Jaynes
All quotes →Abstract words are ancient coins whose concrete images in the give and take of talk have worn away with use.
Julian JaynesRead
One does one's thinking before one knows what one is to think about.
Julian JaynesRead
Similar quotes
The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self.
Baruch SpinozaRead
Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensibl e earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see.
Annie DillardRead
In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American people who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population.
Lin BiaoRead
Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
The relaxation should not be a method. You should not relax through a Yoga posture. This very understanding is relaxing, this very understanding is relaxation. You relax, effort disappears. You live your ordinary life - you chop wood and you carry water from the well and you cook food and you eat and you sleep and you love and you live ordinarily with no hankering and no desire for anything extraordinary.
RajneeshRead
Laurel and Hardy. That's John and Yoko, and we stand a better chance under that guise, because all the serious people, like Martin Luther King, and Kennedy, and Gandhi, got shot.
John LennonRead