Intellectuals

Waste no more time arguing about a good man should be. Be one.

Tao Te Ching

Chapter 78

Nothing in the world is softer or weaker than water
Yet nothing is better at overcoming the hard and strong
This is because nothing can replace it

That the weak overcomes the strong
And the soft overcomes the hard
Everybody in the world knows
But cannot put into practice

Therefore sages say:
The one who accepts the humiliation of the state
Is called its master
The one who accepts the misfortune of the state
Becomes king of the world
The truth seems like the opposite. (source)

For the understanding, like the eye, judging of objects only by its own sight, cannot but be pleased with what it discovers, having less regret for what has escaped it, because it is unknown. Thus he who has raised himself above the alms-basket, and, not content to live lazily on scraps of begged opinions, sets his own thoughts on work, to find and follow truth, will (whatever he lights on) not miss the hunter's satisfaction; every moment of his pursuit will reward his pains with some delight; and he will have reason to think his time not ill spent, even when he cannot much boast of any great acquisition. - John Locke

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is one of the greatest books I've read. I might read his Second Treatise of Government after Hobbes' Leviathan.

We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs.

Berne is the founder of transnational analysis, which explains how duplicitous and conniving, just about everybody are in their conversations, and how to stop it e.g. a fat person asking do I look fat is a double bind, making the other person either be brutally honest or lie for social necessity. The best move is to not play these games.

I try to incoporate the lessons of The Golden Verses into my life. He's a cult leader, but he influenced the stoics and his advice is very sound and humanist e.g.

Support with patience your lot, be it what it may, and never repine at it. But endeavor what you can to remedy it... and consider that fate does not send the greatest portion of these misfortunes to good people.

I'm somewhat familiar with his politics and barely familiar with his linguistic work.

Here's a funny quote about Ayn Rand -

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
— John Rogers

Because I wasn't an egotist, when I was a kid I read the Communist Manifesto, and this lead to similar disillusionment.

Steven Pinker's insights into evolutionary psychology and linguistics are fascinating,but my favorite insights are about cursing, the blank slate fallacy, and how humans are more peaceful now than ever.

Normalcy is insanity.

I don't know if 'Freud is dead', but I remember The Denial of Death was incredibly cathartic.

Some select quotes

I like the main ideas of logotherapy; my favorite is the anecdote of the man who sweat (or some other bodily function) anxiously and was asked by Frankl to sweat profusely in public as much as he can. The anxiety went away and he was cured. It's easy to forget how frequently misery becomes greater and sometimes more intense by avoiding something.

I need to study more about his thinking tools.

He makes a cogent argument for utiltarian consequential-ism instead of absolutism (the categorical imperative, or intention).

His opinions about film and psychoanalysis are interesting, but his smug misanthropy is grating.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognises infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it. It is not selfish to think for oneself. A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one's neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him. A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses. - Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism

Ethics seems like his most interesting book. He's got the formula for happiness.

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

I was hesitant to read his books because some were tainted by his sister's Nazism. I'll try to find some corrected editions.

An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.