Materialist Persuasion Quotes

But although realism does not add anything to the catalogue of entities or properties that a subjectivist believes to exist in the world, it does hold that certain truths that subjectivists think have to be grounded in something else do not have to be so grounded, but are just true in their own right. After all, whatever one's philosophical views, so long as there is such a thing as truth there must be some truths that don't have to be grounded in anything else. Disagreement over which truths these are defines some of the deepest fault lines of philosophy. To philosophers of an idealist persuasion it is self-evident that physical facts can't just be true in themselves, but must be explained in terms of actual or possible experience, just as it is self-evident to those of a materialist persuasion that mental facts can't just be true in themselves, but must be explained in terms of actual or possible behavior, functional organization, or physiology. The issue over moral realism is of the same kind. ~ Thomas Nagel

If there is any thing disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it. ~ Jane Austen

Also, even if technocrats provide reasonable estimates of a risk, which itself is an iffy enterprise, they cannot dictate what level of risk people ought to accept. People might object to a nuclear power plant that has a minuscule risk of a meltdown not because they overestimate the risk, but because they feel that the cost of a catastrophe, no matter how remote, are too dreadful. And of course any of these trade-offs may be unacceptable if people perceive that the benefits would go to the wealthy and powerful while they themselves absorb the risks. Nonetheless, understanding the difference between our best science and our ancient ways of thinking can only make our individual and collective decisions better informed. It can help scientists and journalists explain a new technology in the face of the most common misunderstandings. And it can help all of us understand the technology so that we can accept or reject it on grounds that we can justify to ourselves and to others. ~ Steven Pinker

Since ancient times, the left side has stood for the side of the unconscious or the unknown; the right side, by contrast, has represented the side of consciousness or wakefulness. Through the late twentieth century, the movement of the Left limited themselves to a materialist understanding of reality- exemplified by Marxism- demanding social justice and economic equality but not the restoration of intuition and the recognition of the hidden, qualitative dimensions of being suppressed by the mental-rational consciousness, narrowly focused on the quantifiable. ~ Jean Gebser

The land of opportunity", "The American dream", "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness": these are the sounds of the great sucking mechanism of the American parasite. The reliance of seduction and persuasion over coercion that sold democracy to the American people eventually sold it to the rest of the world. Although there are a minority of examples of the direct parasitism of involuntary immigration, especially slaves from Africa and the "legal" incorporation of Native Americans, voluntary immigration through the lure of freedom and and equality is only a more indirect form of parasitic predation. What is voluntary can be no less predatory than coercion, just as capitalism can be no less predatory than military imperialism. From the point of view of competition among nations, the point is not whether a citizen or their ancestor originally arrived voluntarily or involuntarily, but whether a nation or ideology is successful in harnessing its human resources towards its national interest or way of life. American parasitism works because it offers the secular Judaism of liberalism rather than the secular Christianity of communism. Communism could never compete with the immigrant American hope that they themselves might one day be a filthy rich capitalist. ~ Mitchell Heisman

Need is stronger than want.
Action is stronger than speech.
Persuasion is stronger than force.
Influence is stronger than authority.

Progress is stronger than movement.
Momentum is stronger than activity.
Perfection is stronger than excellence.
Consequence is stronger than action.

Knowledge is stronger than ignorance.
Instinct is stronger understanding.
Wisdom is stronger than intelligence.
Certainty is stronger than perception.

Contentment is stronger than desire.
Joy is stronger than happiness.
Faith is stronger than courage.
Love is stronger than yearning.

Truth is stronger than reality.
Fate is stronger than chance.
Existence is stronger than time.
Eternity is stronger than death. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Oral delivery aims at persuasion and making the listener believe they are converted. Few persons are capable of being convinced the majority allow themselves to be persuaded. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A materialist feminist approach to women's oppression destroys the idea that women are a 'natural group' ... What the analysis accomplishes on the level of ideas, practice makes actual at the level of facts: by its very existence, lesbian society destroys the artificial (social) fact constituting women as a 'natural group.' A lesbian society pragmatically reveals that the division from men of which women have been the object is a political one ... ~ Monique Wittig

basic rule of negotiation is to know what you want, what you need to walk away with in order to be whole. ~ Phil Knight

One place is as good as another, in the valley without exit... ~ Carlo Michelstaedter

[The materialist] thinks me a slave because I am not allowed to believe in determinism. I think [the materialist] a slave because he is not allowed to believe in fairies. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly any body to love. (of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, Persuasion) ~ Jane Austen

In other words, logic enables you to say something besides "because I said so" or "or else I will hit you" as a means of persuasion. The ~ Laurie Endicott Thomas

Through all the ages the mind has been regarded as evil, and every form of insult: from heretic to materialist to exploiter - every form of iniquity: from exile to disfranchisement to expropriation - every form of torture: from sneers to rack to firing squad - have been brought down upon those who assumed the responsibility of looking at the world through the eyes of a living consciousness and performing the crucial act of a rational connection. Yet only to the extent to which - in chains, in dungeons, in hidden corners, in the cells of philosophers, in the shops of traders - some men continued to think, only to that extent was humanity able to survive. ~ Ayn Rand

If "facts" convinced people of things, no one would have sex ~ Glenn Hefley

Although Martin Luther's theological message was couched as an exhortation to all Christian people, his frame of reference, the human experiences on which he drew and his emotional sympathies, or almost entirely German. ~ Andrew Pettegree

[M]ere knowledge of the truth will not give you the art of persuasion. ~ Plato

I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time. ~ Neil Gaiman

The attitude of Communists towards any person who has made mistakes in his work should be one of persuasion in order to help him change and start afresh and not one of exclusion, unless he is incorrigible. ~ Mao Zedong

No amount of logic can usually move a battered woman, so persuasion requires emotional leverage, not statistics or moral arguments ... I have seen their fear and resistance firsthand ... I believe it is critical for a woman to view staying as a choice, for only then can leaving be viewed as a choice and an option. ~ Gavin De Becker

I'll tell you what leadership is. It's persuasion and conciliation, and education, and patience. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

The young mind is pliable and imitates, but in more advanced states grows rigid and must be warmed and softened before it will receive a deep impression. ~ Joshua Reynolds

Sometimes all you need to do to win clever people over to a principle is to present it in the form of a shocking paradox. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

If we cannot prevail with men for God, we will at least endeavor to prevail with God for men. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

A major fault, for example, is the fact that, along with the materialist principle, Darwin introduced into his theory of evolution reactionary Malthusian ideas. ~ Trofim Lysenko

I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Uncle Jonathan to worry about prostitution being too much for my feminine persuasion, yet think nothing of me seeing a body spliced open before I'd even had my luncheon. ~ Kerri Maniscalco

It was about as easy getting the Statue of Liberty to spread cunny, which did take some dynamite persuasion. ~ William T. Vollmann

It would behoove you to have your thesis finely tuned and the logical arguments utilized in support of it tightly woven into a credible, and creatively persuasive tapestry. ~ R. Alan Woods

Why did men have to be such idiots sometimes? But men were, and he was a card-carrying member of that persuasion that often put its foot in its mouth, and there was nothing he could do to yank it out until they reached their destination. ~ Lauren Blakely

A sociosphere of contact, control, persuasion and dissuasion, of exhibitions of inhibitions in massive or homeopathic doses ... : this is obscenity. All structures turned inside out and exhibited, all operations rendered visible. In America this goes all the way from the bewildering network of aerial telephone and electric wiresto the concrete multiplication of all the bodily functions in the home, the litany of ingredients on the tiniest can of food, the exhibition of income or IQ. ~ Jean Baudrillard

The inward persuasion that we are free to do, or not to do a thing, is but a mere illusion. If we trace the true principle of our actions, we shall find, that they are always necessary consequences of our volitions and desires, which are never in our power. You think yourself free, because you do what you will; but are you free to will, or not to will; to desire, or not to desire? Are not your volitions and desires necessarily excited by objects or qualities totally independent of you? ~ Baron D'Holbach