Words&Dirt

“Through light shed on the mental processes, Bacon wished to reform reasoning across all the branches of learning. Beware, he said, of the idols of the mind, the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall. They are the real distorting prisms of human nature. Among them, idols of the tribe assume more order than exists in chaotic nature; those of the imprisoning cave, the idiosyncrasies of individual belief and passion; of the marketplace, the power of mere words to induce belief in nonexistent things; and of the theater, unquestioning acceptance of philosophical beliefs and misleading demonstrations. Stay clear of these idols, he urged, observe the world around you as it truly is, and reflect on the best means of transmitting reality as you have experienced it; put into it every fiber of your being.”

––Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, by Edward O. Wilson, pg. 29

“This you can know––fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.”

––The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, pg. 151