Category: Aphorisms and Observations
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The Shroud of Turin
Remarkable is the contrast between the face of serenity and the body brutalized.
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Ignorance of Evil
Ignorance is evil, and the worst ignorance is the ignorance of evil itself: that it is real, and that free will is real, without which evil cannot exist.
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Brevity Protracted
The longer the life, the longer the exposure to the brevity of life.
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To Be Human
To be human is to be flawed; to be conservative is to know this.
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As the World Grows Dark
The darkening of the world has this advantage: it inspires us to seek for light where it is more likely to be found.
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Fruitful Disagreement
When there is an excess of agreement, discussions in politics and elsewhere are often tiresome and boring: the parties are as if in competition to see who can express the most outrage. One is preaching to the preachers. But an excess of agreement is better than a paucity thereof. The ideal discussion, however, is one…
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Husserl and Heidegger
Husserl seems to think that everything can be brought into the light of adequate, indeed apodictic, evidence. The dark and hidden get their revenge in his most distinguished student, Heidegger.
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Double Pleasure
He who writes enjoys a double pleasure, that of writing, and that of reading what he has written.
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The Old Soul
The old soul sees, while his body is yet young, that this world has nothing to offer us that is finally satisfactory.
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But I have never met a more scintillating interlocutor!
Talking to oneself is often idle talk too.
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If You Understood, You’d Agree!
There is a privileging of one's position whereby every objection can only be proof of misunderstanding. I get this privileging impression from Eugen Fink. One example is on p. 47 of The Sixth Cartesian Meditation.
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Moral Progress Report
Between my abandonment of my vices and their abandonment of me, progress has been made. The weaker the flesh, the stronger the spirit.