It begins with skepticism. The history of human folly, and our own susceptibility to illusions and fallacies, tell us that men and women are fallible.
Interpretation
Skepticism is a crucial starting point for understanding human errors and illusions.
The quote emphasizes the importance of skepticism in evaluating human beliefs and behaviors. It suggests that recognizing our fallibility and the history of human mistakes can lead to a more thoughtful and critical approach to our understanding of the world.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of critical thinking in education.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
I've spent my life trying to make things simpler. Because I find ultimately that complicated doesn't reach the heart.
You are also the physician who must watch over yourself. But in the course of every illness there are many days in which the physician can do nothing but wait.
One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.
Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.
It is with our Passions, as it is with Fire and Water, they are 'Good Servants,' but 'Bad Masters.'
I will be patient till even patience tires of my patience.
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