8 Quotes Tagged: conventional-wisdom

He did not consider public opinion to be accurate at long range.

Under the absolute sway of an individual despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul, and the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose superior to the attempt; but such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved.

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

The modern mind is never popular in its own day. People hate being made to think.

A trend was a trend only because people thought it so. And in thinking it so, they made it so.

It is not only the hostility of others that may prevent us from questioning the status quo. Our will to doubt can be just as powerfully sapped by an internal sense that societal conventions must have a sound basis, even if we are not sure exactly what this may be, because they have been adhered to by a great many people for a long time. It seems implausible that our society could be gravely mistaken in its beliefs, and at the same time, that we would be alone in noticing the fact. We stifle our doubts, and follow the flock, because we cannot conceive of ourselves as pioneers of hitherto unknown difficult truths. It is for help in overcoming our meekness that we can turn to the philosopher.

A whole nation cannot rise above itself.

Convention (is) so often a mask for injustice.