“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
— George Orwell Primary source“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”
— Ayn Rand Disputed“I’m afraid that’s the way it [reality] is. If there are twenty factors and they interact some, you’ll have to learn to handle it—because that’s the way the world is. But you won’t find it that hard if you go at it Darwin-like, step by step with curious persistence. You’ll be amazed at how good you can get.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality ought to be.”
— Richard Feynman Primary source“Ideology does some strange things and distorts cognition terribly. If you get a lot of heavy ideology young, and then you start expressing it, you are really locking your brain into a very unfortunate pattern. And you are going to distort your general cognition.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.”
— Thucydides Primary sourceScience Cause and Effect Objectivity Humility Technology