The Wisdom Letter #445
5 quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Dickens, and others.
For today’s edition of Wisdom Letter, we have carefully curated five bite-sized quotes from brilliant thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Dickens, each paired with a philosophical question designed to provoke deep reflection.
Quote № 01:
“Misunderstood! It is a right fool’s word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
~ Follow-up Question:
Is misunderstanding a sign of intellectual courage, or can it also disguise self-deception and wounded vanity?
Quote № 02:
“Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.”
— Charles Dickens (1812–1870), “A Tale of Two Cities”
~ Follow-up Question:
Why does remorse sometimes feel less like punishment than a fragile sign that conscience has not entirely abandoned us?
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If you read this regularly and it adds something to your day, this is your moment to support it:
Quote № 03:
“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”
— George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
~ Follow-up Question:
To what extent does personal agency remain meaningful when social structures silently determine the horizon of one’s possible choices?
Quote № 04:
“But again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. The schoolteacher is well aware of this. And the question is not one of knowing what punishment or reward attends the making of this calculation. The question is one of knowing whether two and two do make four.”
— Albert Camus (1913–1960), “The Plague”
~ Follow-up Question:
What becomes of human dignity when societies punish not wrongdoing, but simple fidelity to what is real?
Quote № 05:
“Knowledge is no guarantee of good behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior.”
— Martha Nussbaum (1947), “Not for Profit”
~ Follow-up Question:
Is ethical growth driven more by learning truth or by developing empathy for others’ suffering?
Most people read this and move on.
A small number decide it’s worth supporting.
If you’ve read this far, you already know which one you are.
Thank you reading today’s Wisdom Letter.
Stay Curious.
Maze Heart, the curator of Philosophors.
The Camus quote is, of course, perfect but everyone reading this lived that exact situation. A simple search will find any number of articles by the academics and the media saying the exact 2+2 = 5 argument all thru the Covid/DEI/BLM era. The “Trust the Science” crowd bent the knee and refused as Camus suggested it might.
I had a problem with this when I wrote it. I thought, but physics... But I still decided to put it out there to get back into the habit of writing and defending social commentary. I liked what I wrote though so ego and sophistry tried to step in, especially after your reply Tom. A simple human reaction. Nothing specifically about your response.
I believe Hemingway said to become a good writer you have to learn to be able to throw away what you've written. I was struggling.
But it got me thinking about the nature of Truth and human constructs like ethics and morality because I do think they're inexorably linked. I questioned whether truth was just a human creation, if there is truth when two supernovas collide. I'm on the side of yes there is an object reality there.
I then questioned our ability to perceive it accurately. Whether truth exists anywhere else than consciousness. There is a viewpoint that our quest to understand, to find a finite answer to, the science of what we are experiencing will never stop. The this is how it is.
That was when I saw the loophole that allowed ethics and morality to enter the truth equation. To be informed by the truth means to inevitably shape it. We have to give it a definition that we can perceive. Something that exists outside of that which is being observed. A definition that can be compared to another and found to be correct. That requires a systemic framework containing right and wrong. And it is only through the application of that framework that we can make that determination. We have to value the qualities of one over the other and use that as a guide while we go about the process of determining the true nature of things. We must adopt a set of rules to guide us that we adhere to while we are in that process. They are inextricably bound.
That said, I don't think world eating blackholes care.