Quotes, thoughts, and philosophy — a treasury of extraordinary ideas.

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Étienne de La Boétie quote about reason, good counsel, training, and virtueCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"There is in our souls some native seed of reason, which, if nourished by good counsel and training, flowers into virtue, but which, on the other hand, if unable to resist the vices surrounding it, is stifled and blighted." Étienne de La Boétie
Inspirational John Dewey quote image about conflict and thoughtCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving…conflict is a sine qua non of reflection and ingenuity." John Dewey
Étienne de La Boétie quote about reason, good counsel, training, and virtueCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"There is in our souls some native seed of reason, which, if nourished by good counsel and training, flowers into virtue, but which, on the other hand, if unable to resist the vices surrounding it, is stifled and blighted." Étienne de La Boétie
Inspirational John Dewey quote image about conflict and thoughtCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving…conflict is a sine qua non of reflection and ingenuity." John Dewey
Inspirational quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe about the power of commitment and boldnessCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would have never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Charles Bukowski quote about passion, creativity, and inner driveCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it. when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was." Charles Bukowski
Brian Tracy quote about how clear goals and big goals fuel achievement and drive successCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement. The bigger your goals and the clearer they are, the more excited you become about achieving them. The more you think about your goals, the greater becomes your inner drive and desire to accomplish them." Brian Tracy
Utopia and moving forward quote image by Eduardo GaleanoCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Utopia is on the horizon. I move two steps closer; it moves two steps further away. I walk another ten steps and the horizon runs ten steps further away. As much as I may walk, I'll never reach it. So what's the point of utopia? The point is this: to keep walking." Eduardo Galeano
Ivan Illich quote image about service being mistaken for valueCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"The pupil's imagination is 'schooled' to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work." Ivan Illich
Noam Chomsky quote about schools, education, and power structuresCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Far from creating independent thinkers, schools have always, throughout history, played an institutional role in a system of control and coercion. And once you are well educated you have already been socialized in ways that support the power structure, which, in turn, rewards you immensely." Noam Chomsky
Quote image featuring John Taylor Gatto on schools, standardization, and controlCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Schools were designed by Horace Mann and Barnard Sears and Harper of the University of Chicago and Thorndyke of Columbia Teachers College and some other men to be instruments of the scientific management of a mass population. Schools are intended to produce through the application of formulae, formulaic human beings whose behavior can be predicted and controlled." John Taylor Gatto
John Taylor Gatto quote about reading, analysis, discussion, and independent thinkingCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Close reading of tough-minded writing is still the best, cheapest, and quickest method known for learning to think for yourself... Reading, and rigorous discussion of that reading in a way that obliges you to formulate a position and support it against objections, is an operational definition of education... reading, analysis, and discussion is the way we develop reliable judgment, the principle way we come to penetrate covert movements behind the facade of public appearances." John Taylor Gatto
John Taylor Gatto quote about learning and teachingCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"It was never factually true that young people learn to read or do arithmetic primarily by being taught these things. These things are learned, but not really taught at all. Over-teaching interferes with learning, although the few who survive it may well come to imagine it was by an act of teaching." John Taylor Gatto
John Taylor Gatto quote about self-direction, growth, mastery, and educationCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Growth and mastery come only to those who vigorously self-direct. Initiating, creating, doing, reflecting, freely associating, enjoying privacy-these are precisely what the structures of schooling are set up to prevent, on one pretext or another." John Taylor Gatto
Thomas Sowell quote image about education and critical thinkingCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Our whole educational system, from the elementary schools to the universities, is increasingly turning out people who have never heard enough conflicting arguments to develop the skills and discipline required to produce a coherent analysis, based on logic and evidence. The implications of having so many people so incapable of confronting opposing arguments with anything besides ad hominem responses reach far." Thomas Sowell
Quote by Frederick Taylor Gates on education reform and societal visionCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"In our dreams we have limitless resources and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our moulding hand. The present education conventions made from our minds and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, editors, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor shall we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply. The task which we set before ourselves is a very simple as well as a very beautiful one, to train these people as we find them to a perfectly ideal life just where they are. So we will organize our children into a little community and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way, in the homes, in the shop and on the farm." Frederick Taylor Gates
Platon quote about wisdom, knowledge, and the future of educationCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Someday, in the distant future, our grand-children' s grand-children will develop a new equivalent of our classrooms. They will spend many hours in front of boxes with fires glowing within. May they have the wisdom to know the difference between light and knowledge." Platon
Quote image featuring Benjamin Constant on conflict, strategy, and decisive actionCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"It is truly foolish to try to win over people who have different interests than we do through words. When one speaks out, one only gives them the means to harm us. One must decide, act, and remain silent." Benjamin Constant
Bill Cooper quote about choosing between right and wrong decisionsCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"We always know, we always know, which is the right way to go, and which is the wrong way to go. Sometimes, the wrong way is easier to go, or more satisfying, and so we choose that way instead of the right one and we justify it with complicated wordplay and such; but we are only kidding ourselves." Bill Cooper
Daniel J. Boorstin quote about knowledge, ignorance, skepticism, and fanaticismCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever." Daniel J. Boorstin
Simon O. Sinek quote about authenticity, human imperfections, and great leadershipCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Authenticity is about imperfection. And authenticity is a very human quality. To be authentic is to be at peace with your imperfections. The great leaders are not the strongest, they are the ones who are honest about their weaknesses. The great leaders are not the smartest; they are the ones who admit how much they don't know. The great leaders can't do everything; they are the ones who look to others to help them. Great leaders don't see themselves as great; they see themselves as human." Simon O. Sinek
Werner Karl Heisenberg quote about expertise, mistakes, and avoiding errorsCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Many people will tell you that an expert is someone who knows a great deal about the subject. To this I would object that one can never know much about any subject. I would much prefer the following definition: an expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in the subject, and how to avoid them." Werner Karl Heisenberg
Rupert Sheldrake quote about scientific materialism, psychic phenomena, and rational inquiryCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"In no other field of scientific endeavor do otherwise intelligent people feel free to make public claims based on prejudice and ignorance. Yet in relation to psychic phenomena, committed materialists feel free to disregard the evidence and behave irrationally and unscientifically, while claiming to speak in the name of science and reason. They abuse the authority of science and bring rationalism into disrepute." Rupert Sheldrake
Thomas Kuhn quote about scientific discoveries and solving problems through scienceCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"The man who is striving to solve a problem defined by existing knowledge and technique is not, however, just looking around. He knows what he wants to achieve, and he designs his instruments and directs his thoughts accordingly. Unanticipated novelty, the new discovery, can emerge only to the extent that his anticipations about nature and his instruments prove wrong... There is no other effective way in which discoveries might be generated." Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn quote about normal science and scientific paradigmsCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all. Nor do scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others." Thomas Kuhn
Quote by Christian Drosten explaining why isolating SARS-CoV-2 virus is unique and challengingCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"We also tried this for a long time, to isolate viruses in cell cultures. We never succeeded. That's how it is for many labs around the world that have tried. Zhengli Shi is actually the only lab back in Wuhan that managed to do that, to isolate a virus for once.[....] I know Zhengli Shi used the ones in the lab for that as well. Here you have to say, when you do this, practically the first thing that happens with the SARS-2 virus is that this furin site in the virus is destroyed. So when we isolate SARS-2 virus in Vero cells from patients, that furin site goes away immediately because that's a selection disadvantage for the virus in cell culture." Christian Drosten
Dr Mike Yeadon discusses the existence of viruses focusing on SARS-CoV-2Copyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"I’m aware this two page backgrounder & experimental proposal aims to show whether or not viruses exist, focussing on SARS-CoV-2. I’m a signatory because, having given a lot of thought to the entire proposition, I now believe it’s yet another of the lies to which we’ve been subject. In the case of scientists, even those in commercial drug discovery, have taken as fact that viruses exist without ever reviewing the original papers." Dr Mike Yeadon
Quote about the uniqueness of cosmology by Bjørn Ekeberg and Louis MarmetCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Cosmology is different from other sciences in a fundamental way. The sheer scope of the subject matter covers the largest extent imaginable - literally - and it does so based only on observations from our own local place within it." Bjørn Ekeberg & Louis Marmet
John Taylor Gatto quote about self-limitation, fear, and low expectationsCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"If you put fleas in a shallow container they jump out. But if you put a lid on the container for just a short time, they hit the lid trying to escape and learn quickly not to jump so high. They give up their quest for freedom. After the lid is removed, the fleas remain imprisond by their own self policing. So it is with life. Most of us let our own fears or the impositions of others imprison us in a world of low expectations." John Taylor Gatto
Murray Rothbard quote about anarchist society and the StateCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual. Anarchists oppose the State because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights." Murray Rothbard
Albert Jay Nock quote image about economic and political meansCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of wealth; this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others; this is the political means." Albert Jay Nock
Quote by Max Weber on violence, power, and political communitiesCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"All political entities are violent entities. But the type and degree of the use or threat of external violence against other similar entities plays a specific role in the structure and fate of political communities. Not every political entity is equally "expansive" in the sense that it seeks power externally, i.e., making force available for the purpose of acquiring political power over other territories and communities, whether in the form of incorporation or [of] dependency. The political entities are thus, to varying degrees, outwardly turned entities of violence." Max Weber
Walter Lippmann quote about popular will, public opinion, and democratic governmentCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If that theory is accepted, we must abandon the notion that democratic government can be the direct expression of the will of the people. We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead, we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilizations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern. We must say that the popular will does not direct continuously but that it intervenes occasionally." Walter Lippmann
Aldous Huxley quote about democracy, technology, and the concentration of powerCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"Democracy can hardly be expected to flourish in societies where political and economic power is being progressively concentrated and centralized. But the progress of technology has led and is still leading to just such a concentration and centralization of power." Aldous Huxley
Quote image featuring Ingolfur Blühdorn discussing the challenges and disenfranchisement in modern democracy.Copyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"It has long been obvious in the Western tribal countries of democracy that the promises inherent in this concept will probably remain unfulfilled: Politics is losing ground dramatically to the power of the markets; supposedly democratic systems are firmly in the hands of powerfully organized interests and have less and less to do with popular sovereignty - if there ever was any. Social inequality and the disenfranchisement and reification of citizens as mere administrative objects or human resources are advancing inexorably - though every step of disenfranchisement is communicated as emancipatory gain." Ingolfur Blühdorn
Ludwig von Mises quote about the gold standard and inflationCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"The gold standard did not collapse. Governments abolished it in order to pave the way for inflation. The whole grim apparatus of oppression and coercion, policemen, customs guards, penal courts, prisons, in some countries even executioners, had to be put into action in order to destroy the gold standard." Ludwig von Mises
Quote by Richard Syron comparing the Federal Reserve System to the ChurchCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"The System is just like the Church. That’s probably why I feel so comfortable with it. It’s got a pope, the chairman; and a college of cardinals, the governors and bank presidents; and a curia, the senior staff. The equivalent of the laity is the commercial banks. If you’re a naughty parishioner in the Catholic Church, you come to confession. In this system, if you’re naughty, you come to the discount window for a loan. We even have different orders of religious thought like Jesuits and Franciscans and Dominicans only we call them pragmatists and monetarists and neo-Keynesians." Richard Syron
Andrew Jackson quote image about the monetary system and injusticeCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out and by the Eternal God I will rout you out. If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning." Andrew Jackson
Thomas Sowell quote about theft, robbery, taxation, and social justiceCopyright © yoice.net – Quote Artwork
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"What do you call it when someone steals someone else's money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes someone else's money openly by force? Robbery. What do you call it when a politician takes someone else's money in taxes and gives it to someone who is more likely to vote for him? Social Justice." Thomas Sowell