Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
VoltaireRead
Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
Interpretation
Serving one's country is more valuable than relying on one's lineage.
This quote by Voltaire emphasizes the importance of personal contribution to society over heritage or ancestry. It suggests that the actions and service one provides for their country hold more significance and value than the legacy left by previous generations, highlighting a meritocratic view of honor and legacy.
In practice
During a graduation speech to inspire students to serve their nation.
Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
Choice is the engine of our evolution ... if you choose unconsciously, you will evolve unconsciously. If you choose consciously, you will evolve consciously
Indeed it is the protean ability of Western civilization to be self-critical and self-correcting - not only in producing wealth but over the whole range of human activities - that constitutes its most decisive superiority over any of its rivals.
Both happiness and unhappiness depend on perception
Reach me a gentian, give me a torch! Let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of a flower down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September to the sightless realm where darkness is awake upon the dark.
He was near tears, 'Who do I blame?' he kept asking me. 'There is no God.I can only blame myself.'" The Reb's face tightened, as if in pain. "That," he said, softly, "is a terrible self-indictment." Worse than an unanswered prayer? "Oh yes. It is far more comforting to think God listened and said no, than to think that nobody's out there.
There is no God, cry the masses more and more vociferously; and with the loss of God man loses his sense of values β is, as it were, massacred because he feels himself of no account.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.