Our social intuition is strong. Here is one of my favorite quotes on this topic, by Sigmund Freud:
Psychological discernment is not as difficult as one might think: Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear soon become convinced that mortals cannot keep a secret. He whose lips are sealed talks with his fingertips; disclosure oozes out of his every pore.
"Fragment of an Analysis of Hysteria" (1901-5), VI, 148
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
Brandolini's law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet adage which emphasizes the difficulty of debunking false, facetious, or otherwise misleading information: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it."
This same article quotes Mark Twain (from his 1906 autobiography:
The glory which is built upon a lie soon becomes a most unpleasant incumbrance. … How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!
The super-charged version of this phenomenon is the Gish Gallop:
The Gish gallop is a term for an eristic technique in which a debater attempts to overwhelm an opponent by excessive number of arguments, without regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott; it is named after the creationist Duane Gish, who used the technique frequently against proponents of evolution.[1][2] It is similar to a method used in formal debate called spreading.
Some of my posts are simply to record an idea so that I have a quick way to track it down later. This is one of those posts.
I've made a habit of publishing pages of quotes every few months at DI. As one of my many sources, I sometimes visit The Quotations Page. Here are some of my favorites from from QP over the past few weeks:
"Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is."
William James (1842 - 1910)
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902 - 1983), quoted in New York Herald Tribune, May 19, 1946
"If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much."
Donald H. Rumsfeld (1932 - ), US Secretary of Defense
"You know that children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers."
John J. Plomp
"Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim."
George Santayana (1863 - 1952), Life of Reason (1905) vol. 1, Introduction
"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example."
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)
"Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian."
Lee Simonson
"The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy."
Alfred North Whitehead (1861 - 1947)
"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument."
William G. McAdoo (1863 - 1941)
"Great men's errors are to be venerated as more fruitful than little men's truths."
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."
Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005)
"A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things."
Herman Melville (1819 - 1891)
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)
Two years ago, I had the opportunity to walk through the Kadisha Valley of northern Lebanon. It is a gorgeous area and it also happens to be the birthplace of Kahlil Gibran. Thus, I will combine some of my photos with some of Gibran's better known quotes.
You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept.
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don’t, they never were.
Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.
The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.
In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. [More . . . ]