Glen's Quotes Db (3173 total)

If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook �even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it� None of us can escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books� The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes.

A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.

In classes like "Intro to Psychology," the students complain that the whole first semester is spent doing nothing but learning new vocabulary, and I say to them, "Well good, maybe you won't complain when you come to church! When I say 'redemption,' it isn't fair for you to say, 'Wait a second. I'm a late 20th-century person from Illinois. You can't use a word like 'Trinity' with me.'" I as a preacher need to say, "Be quiet. Write this word down. I'll teach you how to spell it and how to use it correctly."

Moreover, trusting testimony is a normal, perfectly rational thing to do. One can try to test the reliability of witnesses, but then they have to be trusted. We cannot independently verify everything they say and that’s the point of testimony.