Our opponents, then, have a perfect right to dispute with us about the grounds of our original assent. But they must not accuse us of sheer insanity if, after the assent has been given, our adherence to it is no longer proportioned to every fluctuation of the apparent evidence.
-
-
Marilynne Robinson on Ideological Thinking
The willingness to indulge in ideological thinking — that is, in thinking that is by definition not one's own, which is blind to experience and to the contradictions that arise when broader fields of knowledge are consulted — is a capitulation no one should ever make. It is a betrayal of our magnificent minds and of all the splendid resources our culture has prepared for their use.
-
Anne Lamott on Wonder, Reverence and Awe
Let’s think of reverence and awe, as presence in and openness to the world. The alternative is that we stultify, we shut down. Think of those times when you’ve read prose or poetry that is presented in such a way that you have a fleeting sense of being startled by beauty or insight, by a glimpse into someone’s soul. All of a sudden everything seemed to fit together or at least to have some meaning for a moment. This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of—forgive me—wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break into our small,…
-
Sir Richard Livingstone on Chaos or Cosmos
We have lost—at any rate in the post-primary school—our grip on education. It has become a mass of uncoordinated subjects, a chaos instead of a cosmos. Its dominating idea, so far as it has one, is to provide the equipment of knowledge which an intelligent man should possess. So it tends to become a collection of isolated subjects—a world of planets, as the Greeks perceived planets, stars wandering each on its irregular way, occasionally dashing into each other. For this we need to substitute a solar system whose ruling principle is the making of human beings.
-
Benjamin Braddock on the Rules of the Game
God holds back those who want to go forward on their own strength and who want to justify their flesh by their own zeal. He holds back those who would like to bring all their old nature with them into the kingdom of God and to be praised because they are the driving force, because they are the people who advanced the cause. God holds back all these souls! He strikes them down! Anyone who does not want to be held back by God must find the path that leads downward: the path upon which we become free of ourselves; the path upon which we must die, the path upon…