WIST Quotations

Diamond, Jared -- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)

Dave — Tue, 18 Jan 2022 16:58:13 +0000

People often ask, “What is the single most important environmental / population problem facing the world today?” A flip answer would be, “The single most important problem is our misguided focus on identifying the single most important problem!”

Jared Diamond (b. 1937) American geographer, historian, ornithologist, author
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)
(Source)

Hazlitt, Henry -- Thinking As A Science, ch. 1, opening words (1916)

Dave — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 19:43:34 +0000

Every man knows there are evils in this world which need setting right. Every man has pretty definite ideas as what these evils are. But to most men one in particular stands out vividly. To some, in fact, this stands out with such startling vividness that they lose sight of other evils, or look upon them as the natural consequence of their own particular evil-in-chief.

Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993) American business and economics journalist
Thinking As A Science, ch. 1, opening words (1916)
(Source)

Schopenhauer, Arthur -- Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 2, ch. 26 “Psychological Observations [Psychologische Bemerkungen],” § 338 (1851) [tr. Saunders (1890)]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

[Jeder hält das Ende seines Gesichtskreises für das der Welt.]

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher
Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 2, ch. 26 “Psychological Observations [Psychologische Bemerkungen],” § 338 (1851) [tr. Saunders (1890)]
(Source)

(Source (German)). Alternate translation:

Everyone regards the limits of his field of vision as those of the world.
[tr. Payne (1974)]