Law, Political Theory and Psychological Science
Psychology
Sigmund Freud Quotes
Jun 3rd
A man like me cannot live without a hobby-horse, a consuming passion — in Schiller’s words a tyrant. I have found my tyrant, and in his service I know no limits. My tyrant is psychology. it has always been my distant, beckoning goal and now since I have hit upon the neuroses, it has come so much the nearer.
One might compare the relation of the ego to the id with that between a rider and his horse. The horse provides the locomotor energy, and the rider has the prerogative of determining the goal and of guiding the movements of More >
Rollo May Quotes
Jun 3rd
Anxiety is an even better teacher than reality, for one can temporarily evade reality by avoiding the distasteful situation; but anxiety is a source of education always present because one carries it within.
We define religion as the assumption that life has meaning. Religion, or lack of it, is shown not in some intellectual or verbal formulations but in one’s total orientation to life. Religion is whatever the individual takes to be his ultimate concern. One’s religious attitude is to be found at that point where he has a conviction that there are values in human existence worth living and dying More >
Ferdinand Foch Quotes
May 12th
Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value.
The military art is not an accomplishment, an art for dilettante, a sport. You do not make war without reason, without an object, as you would give yourself up to music, painting, hunting, lawn tennis, where there is no great harm done whether you stop altogether or go on, whether you do little or much. Everything in war is linked together, is mutually interdependent, mutually interpenetrating. When you are at war you have no power to act at random. Each operation has a raison d’etre, that is an object; that object, once More >
Suicide Quotes
May 12th
I myself spent nine years in an insane asylum and I never had the obsession of suicide, but I know that each conversation with a psychiatrist, every morning at the time of his visit, made me want to hang myself, realizing that I would not be able to cut his throat. - Antonin Artaud
“You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be.” - Chuck Palahniuk
I think suicide is the most perfect thing you can do in life. - Damien Hirst
There is no refuge from confession but More >
Karl Popper Quotes
Mar 28th
You can choose whatever name you like for the two types of government. I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence “democracy”, and the other “tyranny”.
The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, clear, and well-defined will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. The main source of our ignorance lies in the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
It is wrong to think that belief in freedom always leads to victory; we More >
William James Quotes
Mar 10th
Tell him to live by yes and no — yes to everything good, no to everything bad.
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognise him.
All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.
Every way of classifying a thing is but a way of handling it for some particular purpose.
Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by as straight a line as they. But Romeo and More >
Karl Jaspers Quotes
Mar 10th
German psychiatrist (1883 – 1969).
The mass-man has very little spare time, does not live a life that appertains to a whole, does not want to exert himself except for some concrete aim which can be expressed in terms of utility; he will not wait patiently while things ripen; everything for him must provide some immediate gratification; and even his mental life must minister to his fleeting pleasures. That is why the essay has become the customary form of literature, why newspapers are taking the place of books… People read quickly and cursorily.
Man, if he is to remain man, must advance More >
Alfred Jules Ayer Quotes
Mar 9th
British humanist philosopher (29/10/1910 – 27/6/1989).
There is philosophy, which is about conceptual analysis — about the meaning of what we say — and there is all of this … all of life.
The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful. The surest way to end them is to establish beyond question what should be the purpose and method of a philosophical enquiry. And this is by no means so difficult a task as the history of philosophy would lead one to suppose. For if there are any questions which science leaves it to More >
Reforming Education: There is No Quick Fix
Mar 8th
(Mortimer Adler Quotes)
An adequate reform of public education in our school system cannot be accomplished by anything like a quick fix. We suspect that anyone who thinks otherwise cannot fully understand the shape of an adequate reform or all the obstacles to be overcome in achieving it.
The books to be read should not be limited to those written in English…. Instead it should be devoted to the great works of history, biography, philosophy, theology, natural science, social science, and mathematics, as well as the… tradition of Western literature — in English translation… Its aim should not be a survey of More >
Can one love truth without loving man? Can one love man without loving truth?
Feb 8th
Love comes first. To love truth, you must know truth. To know truth is to deny truth. What is known is not truth. What is known is already encased in time and ceases to be truth. Truth is an eternal movement, and so cannot be measured in words or in time. It cannot be held in the fist. You cannot love something which you do not know. But truth is not to be found in books, in images, in temples. It is to be found in action, in living. The very search for the unknown is love itself, and you More >
