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Samizdata quote of the day

· Slogans & Quotations

Oh mortal man, is there anything you cannot be made to believe?

– Adam Weishaupt

October 1st, 2012 |

16 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Julie near Chicago
    October 1, 2012 at 1:30 am

    Well, I don’t believe a baby is born every time a fairy blows its wee nose…but then again…I could be wrong….

  • Perry de Havilland
    October 1, 2012 at 2:21 am

    Adam Weishaupt? Hell, I could have sworn it was John Maynard Keynes! 😛

  • Dom
    October 1, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    How about, there are only 100 cod left in the North Sea?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19755695

    The article in HuffPo, linked by the BBC, is interesting. Only one person claimed it was hard to believe, and everyone attacked him.

  • Maria Simons
    October 1, 2012 at 2:09 pm

    How about, there are only 100 cod left in the North Sea?

    So then my household alone has eaten 3% of the North Sea’s entire stock of cod in the last month! Who knew?

  • CaptDMO
    October 1, 2012 at 3:08 pm

    I can NOT be made to believe that Brawndo is what plants crave.

  • JohnB
    October 1, 2012 at 6:36 pm

    The gentleman is completely correct.
    We are like boats in a sea and the only way to guard being drifted way off course is to take bearings and have the humility to acknowledge that without absolutes (of which we truly have none without the absolute) we can indeed be persuaded of anything.

  • Laird
    October 1, 2012 at 9:57 pm

    Including that there is an absolute.

  • RRS
    October 1, 2012 at 10:20 pm

    You certainly would not address that to an intelligent woman.

    (Without standing back 20 feet out of firing range)

  • tomwright
    October 2, 2012 at 2:17 am

    Quoting the founder of the Illuminati?

    Wow, my conspiracy theorist friends will have their tinfoil hats all a-flutter over this!

  • Alisa
    October 2, 2012 at 6:53 am

    I will believe anything if there’s a politician behind it.

  • JohnB
    October 2, 2012 at 10:49 am

    Indeed, Laird. It would seem there is room for doubt.

    However.

    If one can make sense of anything I suppose it comes down to an individual’s experience. Which could be considered no more valid than hunger or cold or any other survival consideration as a basis for logical thought.

    But seeing as you wondered I can only say that I know the difference that Jesus has made in my life – And I did not come to that lightly.

  • Laird
    October 2, 2012 at 5:12 pm

    JohnB, I’m glad that Jesus has made a (presumably positive) difference in your life. We all do what we can to ease the burdens of life. But just because a certain belief set gives you comfort doesn’t make it reality, or make it necessary for others to share those beliefs in order for them to be happy.

  • veryretired
    October 3, 2012 at 3:26 am

    If history is any indication, the answer is clearly no.

  • Alan K. Henderson
    October 3, 2012 at 8:27 am

    My fantasy dinner party includes Adam Weishaupt, L. Ron Hubbard, and Michael Mann.

  • Paul Marks
    October 3, 2012 at 11:17 am

    Whatever there, very real, faults and failings – better, better by far, to believe in the things that Adam W. opposed (the Roman Catholic Church, the Bavarian monarchy and so on) than in the things he supported – the destruction of the family, the collectivisation of large scale private property, the control of everything by a hidden elite manipulating (“Nudging”?) ordinary folk – by lies and pretense.

    For example Adam W. and his followers basically invented a form of radical “feminism” – but as a way of controlling (and having access to) women. The key trick (they believed) was to have a movement (with rituals, doctrines and so on) entirely (it would seem) controlled by women – indeed deeply hostile to men.

    However, this movement would just happen to teach that the marriage and the family (and private property) were wrong (slavery for women) and instead would spread their legs for any “Progressive” man……the very men who had (behind the scenes) invented the very doctrines that this new female movement would be tricked into thinking they had invented.

    Of course this was all a fantasy of Adam W. – it could never happen in real life….

  • Laird
    October 3, 2012 at 6:30 pm

    “My fantasy dinner party includes Adam Weishaupt, L. Ron Hubbard, and Michael Mann.”

    Wow. I don’t think “fantasy” is the word I’d apply to that group. “Nightmare”, perhaps.

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