Saturday, September 27, 2008

James Quotes

Found two very interesting quotes finishing up William James’s Pluralistic Universe.

The first pretty much sums up my view of God, the universe, and human understanding:

We may be in the universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all.

A common observation, but very well-put, I thought.

The second struck me particularly as more relevant in today’s modern era than the one in which James was writing (1908):

Lots of inferior books, lots of bad statues, lots of dull speeches, of tenth-rate men and women, as a condition of the few precious specimens in either kind being realized!

How very true. I immediately think of the Oprah-fication of our modern American society. Do we ever hear such a sentiment so scathingly stated nowadays? So matter-of-factly? I have no doubt that such critiques are meted out in this day and age, and I also have no doubt that they are bleated down by the sheer numbers of the inferior.

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