Quotes...
I'm reading a really interesting part of the book "What is good?" at the moment, as I rush to complete assignment upon assignment for university. I manage to escape into a computer free "zone" in the lovely twenty minutes it takes for the train to get from Saltburn to Middlesbrough, and whilst in this zone I read today from chapter six, entitled "The Third Enlightenment", some wonderful thoughts and quotes (albeit from other sources-credit to Grayling for bringing them all together into one book!), worth repeating here. So from Kant's "What is Enlightenment?" (1784) I read:
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Dare to know!...For enlightenment of this kind, all that is needed is freedom. And the freedom in question is the most innocuous form of all, namely, the freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters. But I hear on all sides the cry: Don't argue! The officer says: Don't argue, get on parade! The tax-official: Don't argue, pay! The clergyman: Don't argue, believe!"
And respecting sex, or rather in defense of the non-prudish discussion about sex and the unashamed enjoyment of it, Diderot is quoted as saying, from the seminal (28 Volume) Encyclopedie:
"If any perverse Man may have taken offence at my praise of the most august and the most prevalent of passions, I would invoke Nature before him. I would have her speak and she would say to him: Why do you blush upon hearing the name of an exquisite pleasure [volupté] when you do not blush for having felt attracted by it in the shadow of the night? Do you not know its aim and what you owe it? Do you think that your mother would have risked her life in order to give you yours, if she had not attached an inexpressible charm to the embraces of her spouse? Be quiet, miserable one, and bear in mind that it is pleasure that pulled you out of oblivion."
Oh man, I love that last line. Roll it around on your tongue: it is pleasure that pulled you out of oblivion. It is pleasure that pulled you out of oblivion. I could type it forever. A truer word has not been spoken although it's not something we like to dwell on, I'm reminded of the Paul Simon lyric to the Philip Glass gem "Changing Opinion"- "Maybe it's the hum, of our parents' voices, long ago in a soft light, mmmmmm". That mmmmm doesn't really work in text, but it's sung so well ;-) !
These quotes are pretty random I admit. Here's a great one to finish on, again from Diderot, from his "Supplement to Bougainvilles voyage":
"[Nature says] Have you sought your happiness beyond the limits of the world I gave you? Have courage to free yourself from the yoke of religion...Run through the history of the centuries, of nations both ancient and modern, and you will find man in subjection to three codes, the natural code, the civil code, the religious code, and bound to infringe these three codes in turn, as they never agree. So it happens, as Orou guessed about ours, that in no country is there a natural man, a citizen or a pious person."
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Dare to know!...For enlightenment of this kind, all that is needed is freedom. And the freedom in question is the most innocuous form of all, namely, the freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters. But I hear on all sides the cry: Don't argue! The officer says: Don't argue, get on parade! The tax-official: Don't argue, pay! The clergyman: Don't argue, believe!"
And respecting sex, or rather in defense of the non-prudish discussion about sex and the unashamed enjoyment of it, Diderot is quoted as saying, from the seminal (28 Volume) Encyclopedie:
"If any perverse Man may have taken offence at my praise of the most august and the most prevalent of passions, I would invoke Nature before him. I would have her speak and she would say to him: Why do you blush upon hearing the name of an exquisite pleasure [volupté] when you do not blush for having felt attracted by it in the shadow of the night? Do you not know its aim and what you owe it? Do you think that your mother would have risked her life in order to give you yours, if she had not attached an inexpressible charm to the embraces of her spouse? Be quiet, miserable one, and bear in mind that it is pleasure that pulled you out of oblivion."
Oh man, I love that last line. Roll it around on your tongue: it is pleasure that pulled you out of oblivion. It is pleasure that pulled you out of oblivion. I could type it forever. A truer word has not been spoken although it's not something we like to dwell on, I'm reminded of the Paul Simon lyric to the Philip Glass gem "Changing Opinion"- "Maybe it's the hum, of our parents' voices, long ago in a soft light, mmmmmm". That mmmmm doesn't really work in text, but it's sung so well ;-) !
These quotes are pretty random I admit. Here's a great one to finish on, again from Diderot, from his "Supplement to Bougainvilles voyage":
"[Nature says] Have you sought your happiness beyond the limits of the world I gave you? Have courage to free yourself from the yoke of religion...Run through the history of the centuries, of nations both ancient and modern, and you will find man in subjection to three codes, the natural code, the civil code, the religious code, and bound to infringe these three codes in turn, as they never agree. So it happens, as Orou guessed about ours, that in no country is there a natural man, a citizen or a pious person."
posted by John Doran-Armstrong at 8:51 PM
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