Correct A Fool Quotes

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When you are gunning to be like other people, you are foolishly repeating their mistakes, and the worst of it all is that you can't even correct yours.
Michael Bassey Johnson
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little or too much; Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd; The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides, Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old time, and regulate the sun; Go, soar with Plato to th’ empyreal sphere, To the first good, first perfect, and first fair; Or tread the mazy round his followers trod, And quitting sense call imitating God; As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun. Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule— Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!
Alexander Pope (An Essay on Man)
Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition will not need to be told the story in detail; how he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings; snatched at ideas and lost them; saw his book plain before him and it vanished; acted people's parts as he ate; mouthed them as he walked; now cried; now laughed; vacillated between this style and that; now preferred the heroic and pompous; next the plain and simple; now the vales of Tempe; then the fields of Kent or Cornwall; and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.
Virginia Woolf (Orlando)
Books lie, he said. God dont lie. No, said the judge. He does not. And these are his words. He held up a chunk of rock. He speaks in stones and trees, the bones of things. The squatters in their rags nodded among themselves and were soon reckoning him correct, this man of learning, in all his speculations, and this the judge encouraged until they were right proselytes of the new order whereupon he laughed at them for fools.
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West)
You damn fool. You realize, even if all your assumptions are correct-even then, you still have to steal the world's most coveted sword from the world's safest place then be pursued by the ultimate hunter until you reach the heart of an enemy country in the middle of a war in which any side will happily kill you as a traitor, a spy, a wytch, or all three?" "I thought you'd like it.
Brent Weeks (Beyond the Shadows (Night Angel, #3))
I learned over the years never to correct a fool or he will hate you; correct a wise man, and he will appreciate you.
Ziad K. Abdelnour
„You're Ned Stark's bastard, aren't you?“ Jon felt a coldness pass right through him. He pressed his lips together and said nothing. „Did I offend you?“ Lannister said. „Sorry. Dwarfs don't have to be tactful. Generations of capering fools in motley have won me the right to dress badly and say any damn thing that comes into my head.“ He grinned. „You are the bastard, though.“ „Lord Eddard Stark is my father,“ Jon admitted stiffly. Lannister studied his face. „Yes,“ he said. „I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers.“ „Half brothers,“ Jon corrected. He was pleased by the dwarf's comment, but he tried not to let it show. „Let me give you some counsel, bastard,“ Lannister said. „Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strenght. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.“ Jon was in no mood for anyone's counsel. „What do you know about being a bastard?“ „All dwarfs are bastards in their father's eyes.“ „You are your mother's trueborn son of Lannister.“ „Am I?“ the dwarf replied, sardonic. „Do tell my lord father. My mother died birthing me, and he's never been sure.“ „I don't even know who my mother was,“ Jon said. „Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are.“ He favored Jon with a rueful grin. „Remember this, boy. All dwarfs may be bastards, yet not all bastards need be dwarfs.“ And with that he turned and sauntered back into the feast, whistling a tune. When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king.
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
Perhaps the reason we so often experience happiness only in hindsight, and that chasing it is such a fool’s errand, is that happiness isn’t a goal in itself but is only an aftereffect. It’s the consequence of having lived in the way that we’re supposed to — by which I don’t mean ethically correctly so much as just consciously, fully engaged in the business of living. In this respect it resembles averted vision, a phenomena familiar to backyard astronomers whereby, in order to pick out a very faint star, you have to let your gaze drift casually to the space just next to it; if you look directly at it, it vanishes. And it’s also true, come to think of it, that the only stars we ever see are not the “real” stars, those cataclysms taking place in the present, but always only the light of the untouchable past.
Tim Kreider
Do not correct a fool or he will hate you, correct a wise man and he will appreciate you.
Bruce Lee
THE CORRECTION, when it finally came, was not an overnight bursting of a bubble but a much more gentle letdown, a year-long leakage of value from key financial markets, a contraction too gradual to generate headlines and too predictable to seriously hurt anybody but fools and the working poor.
Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections)
A wise man can make a mistake, but only a fool fails to correct it.
Natasha Solomons (House of Gold)
Recently I interviewed a psychopath. This is always a humbling experience because it teaches over and over how much of human motivation and experience is outside my narrow range. Despite the psychopath's lack of conscience and lack of empathy for others, he is inevitably better at fooling people than any other type of offender. I suppose conscience just slows you down. A child convicted molester, this particular one made friends with a correctional officer who invited him to live in his home after he was released - despite the fact the officer had a nine-year-old daughter. The officer and his wife were so taken with the offender that, after the offender lived with them for a few months, they initiated adoption proceedings- adoption for a man almost their age. Of course, he was a child molester living in the same house as a child. Not surprisingly, he molested the daughter the entire time he lived there. [...] What these experiences taught have me is that even when people are warned of a previously founded case of even a conviction, they still routinely underestimate the pathology with which they are dealing.
Anna C. Salter (Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders)
People often tell themselves lies, in order to reach what they consider acceptance in difficult situations. In reality, they fool themselves into believing they are healed, until that lie is corrected by time, further information or their own personal growth. True healing comes when we learn to not avoid truth, but face it. Only then will we be set free.
Shannon L. Alder
Most of my failures can be ascribed to the fact that I chose that which was ‘easy’ over that which was ‘right’. And while it’s ‘right’ to admit this to myself, it isn’t ‘easy.’ So, which choice am I going to make this time?
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Yes—I think you’re correct,” he nodded as he returned. “It isn’t saying much, sergeant, but you’re not quite the fool you look.” “Very kind of you to say so,” grunted the sergeant. “Not at all. Haven’t you noticed how full of compliments I am?
J. Jefferson Farjeon (Seven Dead)
Jimmy was no fool but he’d been well loved by good parents and well taught by good teachers, and those two facts accounted for the habit of obedience that mystified and enraged Peggy Soong. Over and over in his life, authority had proven correct and the decisions of his parents and teachers and bosses made sense to him eventually.
Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1))
Don't confuse me for that other girl, She's a fraud and a fool. Don't confuse me with anyone else, I am not anyone other than myself.
Maddy Kobar (The Songs of The Gullible Wiseman: The Early Poems of Maddy Kobar, 2008-2013)
We are faulty and there is no need to bother trying to correct our flaws. We are so defective and so mismatched to our environment that we can just work around these flaws. I
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (Incerto, #1))
There is no way to love a man. Not well, or rather, not correctly. Maggie knows this and loves him anyway — a vast stupidity of love that a part of her views with a painful sort of irony. Of course you love him, you fool, you idiot. What an utterly moronic thing to go and do.
Julia Armfield (Salt Slow)
Each circle spins off a circle of its own. Each one seems a new thing but in truth it is not. It is just our most recent attempt to correct old errors, to undo old wrongs done to us, and to make up for things we have neglected. In each cycle, we may correct old errors, but I think we make as many new ones. Yet what is our alternative? To commit the same old errors again? Perhaps having the courage to find a better path is having the courage to risk making new mistakes.
Robin Hobb (Golden Fool (Tawny Man, #2))
Leonardo is both an extraordinary left-brained academician obsessed with portraying perspective correctly and an impish right-brained trickster who takes delight in fooling the viewer with perspectivist sleights of hand.
Leonard Shlain (Leonardo's Brain: Understanding Da Vinci's Creative Genius)
I wore only black socks, because I had heard that white ones were the classic sign of the American tourist. Black ones though,- those'll fool 'em. I supposed I hoped the European locals' conversation would go something like this: PIERRE: Ha! Look at that tourist with his camera and guidebook! JACQUES: Wait, but observe his socks! They are...black! PIERRE: Zut alors! You are correct! He is one of us! What a fool I am! Let us go speak to him in English and invite him to lunch!
Doug Mack (Europe on 5 Wrong Turns a Day: One Man, Eight Countries, One Vintage Travel Guide)
Imagine taking a test knowing the answer. While we know that history flows forward, it is difficult to realize that we envision it backward. Why is it so? We will discuss the point in Chapter 11 but here is a possible explanation: Our minds are not quite designed to understand how the world works, but, rather, to get out of trouble rapidly and have progeny. If they were made for us to understand things, then we would have a machine in it that would run the past history as in a VCR, with a correct chronology, and it would slow us down so much that we would have trouble operating. Psychologists call this overestimation of what one knew at the time of the event due to subsequent information the hindsight bias, the “I knew it all along” effect.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (Incerto, #1))
Odysseus' favourite pose had been to pretend that he was a man like other men, but there were none like him, and now that he was dead, there were none at all. All heroes are fools, he liked to say. What he meant was, all heroes but me. So who could correct him when he erred? He had stood on the beach looking at Telegonus and believing him a pirate. He had stood in his hall and accused Telemachus of conspiracy. Two children he had had, and he had not seen either clearly. But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.
Madeline Miller (Circe)
Parents are not bestowed with angels to cherish, but unripe fools to correct" (Proverbs 22: 15)
Royal Raj S
It’s thinking that I had the solution that probably created the problem in the first place.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
I'm in a hole because at some point I found a shovel and started digging. Maybe I should trade my shovels for ladders and start climbing.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
I smiled the private smile of the corrected fool
Charlotte Shane (Prostitute Laundry)
Only a fool pursues perfection, the wise pursues self-correction.
Abhijit Naskar (Heart Force One: Need No Gun to Defend Society)
There are people everywhere who form a Forth World, or a diaspora of their own. They are the lordly ones. They come in all colours. They can be Christians or Hindus or Muslims or Jews or pagans or atheists. They can be young or old, men or women, soldiers or pacifists, rich or poor. They may be patriots, but are never chauvinists. They share with each other, across all the nations, common values of humour and understanding. When you are among them you will not be mocked or resented, because they will not care about your race, your faith, your sex or your nationality, and they suffer fools if not gladly, at least sympathetically. They laugh easily. They are easily grateful. They are never mean. They are not inhibited by fashion, public opinion or political correctness. They are exiles in their own communities, because they are always in a minority, but they form a mighty nation, if they only knew it. It is the nation of nowhere, and I have come to believe that its natural capital is Trieste.
Jan Morris (Trieste and The Meaning of Nowhere)
All heroes are fools, he liked to say. What he meant was, all heroes but me. So who could correct him when he erred? He had stood on the beach looking at Telegonus and believing him a pirate. He had stood in his hall and accused Telemachus of conspiracy. Two children he had had, and he had not seen either clearly. But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.
Madeline Miller (Circe)
In my travels on the surface, I once met a man who wore his religious beliefs like a badge of honor upon the sleeves of his tunic. "I am a Gondsman!" he proudly told me as we sat beside eachother at a tavern bar, I sipping my wind, and he, I fear, partaking a bit too much of his more potent drink. He went on to explain the premise of his religion, his very reason for being, that all things were based in science, in mechanics and in discovery. He even asked if he could take a piece of my flesh, that he might study it to determine why the skin of the drow elf is black. "What element is missing," he wondered, "that makes your race different from your surface kin?" I think that the Gondsman honestly believed his claim that if he could merely find the various elements that comprised the drow skin, he might affect a change in that pigmentation to make the dark elves more akin to their surface relatives. And, given his devotion, almost fanaticism, it seemed to me as if he felt he could affect a change in more than physical appearance. Because, in his view of the world, all things could be so explained and corrected. How could i even begin to enlighten him to the complexity? How could i show him the variations between drow and surface elf in the very view of the world resulting from eons of walking widely disparate roads? To a Gondsman fanatic, everything can be broken down, taken apart and put back together. Even a wizard's magic might be no more than a way of conveying universal energies - and that, too, might one day be replicated. My Gondsman companion promised me that he and his fellow inventor priests would one day replicate every spell in any wizard's repertoire, using natural elements in the proper combinations. But there was no mention of the discipline any wizard must attain as he perfects his craft. There was no mention of the fact that powerful wizardly magic is not given to anyone, but rather, is earned, day by day, year by year and decade by decade. It is a lifelong pursuit with gradual increase in power, as mystical as it is secular. So it is with the warrior. The Gondsman spoke of some weapon called an arquebus, a tubular missile thrower with many times the power of the strongest crossbow. Such a weapon strikes terror into the heart of the true warrior, and not because he fears that he will fall victim to it, or even that he fears it will one day replace him. Such weapons offend because the true warrior understands that while one is learning how to use a sword, one should also be learning why and when to use a sword. To grant the power of a weapon master to anyone at all, without effort, without training and proof that the lessons have taken hold, is to deny the responsibility that comes with such power. Of course, there are wizards and warriors who perfect their craft without learning the level of emotional discipline to accompany it, and certainly there are those who attain great prowess in either profession to the detriment of all the world - Artemis Entreri seems a perfect example - but these individuals are, thankfully, rare, and mostly because their emotional lacking will be revealed early in their careers, and it often brings about a fairly abrupt downfall. But if the Gondsman has his way, if his errant view of paradise should come to fruition, then all the years of training will mean little. Any fool could pick up an arquebus or some other powerful weapon and summarily destroy a skilled warrior. Or any child could utilize a Gondsman's magic machine and replicate a firebal, perhaps, and burn down half a city. When I pointed out some of my fears to the Gondsman, he seemed shocked - not at the devastating possibilities, but rather, at my, as he put it, arrogance. "The inventions of the priests of Gond will make all equal!" he declared. "We will lift up the lowly peasant
R.A. Salvatore (Streams of Silver (Forgotten Realms: The Icewind Dale, #2; Legend of Drizzt, #5))
Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition will not need to be told the story in detail; how he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings; snatched at ideas and lost them; saw his book plain before him and it vanished; acted his people’s parts as he ate; mouthed them as he walked; now cried; now laughed; vacillated between this style and that; now preferred the heroic and pompous; next the plain and simple; now the vales of Tempe; then the fields of Kent or Cornwall; and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.
Virginia Woolf (Orlando)
Beware the confusion between correctness and intelligibility. Part of conventional wisdom favors things that can be explained rather instantly and “in a nutshell”—in many circles it is considered law. Having attended a French elementary school, a lycée primaire, I was trained to rehash Boileau’s adage: Ce qui se conçoit bien s’énonce clairement Et les mots pour le dire viennent aisément What is easy to conceive is clear to express / Words to say it would come effortlessly.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (Incerto, #1))
There are people everywhere who form a Fourth World, or a diaspora of their own. They are the lordly ones! They come in all colors. They can be Christians or Hindus or Muslims or Jews or pagans or atheists. They can be young or old, men or women, soldiers or pacifists, rich or poor. They may be patriots, but they are never chauvinists. They share with each other, across all the nations, common values of humor and understanding. When you are among them you know you will not be mocked or resented, because they will not care about your race, your faith, your sex or your nationality, and they suffer fools if not gladly, at least sympathetically. They laugh easily. They are easily grateful. They are never mean. They are not inhibited by fashion, public opinion, or political correctness. They are exiles in their own communities, because they are always in a minority, but they form a mighty nation, if they only knew it. It is the nation of nowhere.
Jan Morris
Everyone outside the Party was a fool or a knave. They wrote up Professor Joad in the Standard, and a gentle reader complained of the epithets - 'ignoramous', 'fathead', etc; the EC informed him that they thought the words precise and correct.
Robert Barltrop
How he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had good nights and bad mornings... and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.
Virginia Woolf (Orlando)
How he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in' was in ecstasy' in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings... and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.
Virginia Woolf (Orlando)
Needless to say that the ideas of this book fall squarely into the Tragic category: We are faulty and there is no need to bother trying to correct our flaws. We are so defective and so mismatched to our environment that we can just work around these flaws.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (Incerto, #1))
The key is whether or not we can hear from others where we are wrong, and accept their feedback without getting defensive. Time and again, the Bible says that someone who listens to feedback from others is wise, but someone who does not is a fool. As Proverbs 9:7–9 says: “Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult; whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse. Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning.
Henry Cloud (Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't)
The insistence is on merit, insinuating that any current majority white leadership in any industry has got there through hard work and no outside help, as if whiteness isn’t its own leg-up, as if it doesn’t imply a familiarity that warms an interviewer to a candidate. When each of the sectors I mentioned earlier have such dire racial representation, you’d have to be fooling yourself if you really think that the homogeneous glut of middle-aged white men currently clogging the upper echelons of most professions got there purely through talent alone. We don’t live in a meritocracy, and to pretend that simple hard work will elevate all to success is an exercise in wilful ignorance. Opposing positive discrimination based on apprehensions about getting the best person for the job means inadvertently revealing what you think talent looks like, and the kind of person in which you think talent resides. Because if the current system worked correctly, and if hiring practices were successfully recruiting and promoting the right people for the right jobs in all circumstances, I seriously doubt that so many leadership positions would be occupied by white middle-aged men.
Reni Eddo-Lodge (Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race)
Nassim Taleb writes in his book Fooled By Randomness: In Pharaonic Egypt … scribes tracked the high-water mark of the Nile and used it as an estimate for a future worst-case scenario. The same can be seen in the Fukushima nuclear reactor, which experienced a catastrophic failure in 2011 when a tsunami struck. It had been built to withstand the worst past historical earthquake, with the builders not imagining much worse—and not thinking that the worst past event had to be a surprise, as it had no precedent. This is not a failure of analysis. It’s a failure of imagination. Realizing the future might not look anything like the past is a special kind of skill that is not generally looked highly upon by the financial forecasting community. At a 2017 dinner I attended in New York, Daniel Kahneman was asked how investors should respond when our forecasts are wrong. He said: Whenever we are surprised by something, even if we admit that we made a mistake, we say, ‘Oh I’ll never make that mistake again.’ But, in fact, what you should learn when you make a mistake because you did not anticipate something is that the world is difficult to anticipate. That’s the correct lesson to learn from surprises: that the world is surprising.
Morgan Housel (The Psychology of Money)
Sandy: Carl I want you to kill all the gophers on the golf course. Carl Spackler: Correct me if I'm wrong Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers they'll lock me up and throw away the key. Sandy: Not golfers, you great fool. Gophers. The little brown, furry rodents. Carl Spackler: We can do that. We don't even need a reason.
Carl Spackler
Wars are won by men like Bill Darby, storming up the beach with all guns blazing, and by men like Leverton, sipping his tea as the bombs fell. They are won by planners correctly calculating how many rations and contraceptives an invading force will need; by tacticians laying out grand strategy; by generals inspiring the men they command; by politicians galvanizing the will to fight; and by writers putting war into words. They are won by acts of strength, bravery, and guile. But they are also won by feats of imagination. Amateur, unpublished novelists, the framers of Operation Mincemeat, dreamed up the most unlikely concatenation of events, rendered them believable, and sent them off to war, changing reality through lateral thinking and proving that it is possible to win a battle fought in the mind, from behind a desk, and from beyond the grave. Operation Mincemeat was pure make-believe; and it made Hitler believe something that changed the course of history.
Ben Macintyre (Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory)
Most people oversimplify Occam’s razor to mean the simplest answer is usually correct. But the real meaning, what the Franciscan friar William of Ockham really wanted to emphasize, is that you shouldn’t complicate, that you shouldn’t “stack” a theory if a simpler explanation was at the ready. Pare it down. Prune the excess.
Harlan Coben (Fool Me Once)
The True Believer ignores anything that doesn't fit his belief system. Instead, he inevitably comes to hold those beliefs at a very profound level. They can become absolutely part of his identity. It is this that brings together the religious, the psychic, the cynic (as opposed to the open skeptic) and the narrow-minded of all kinds. It is something I encountered a lot among my fellow Christians. At one level it can be seen in the circular discussion which goes as follows: Why do you believe in the bible? Because it is Gods word. And why do you believe in God? Because of what it says in the bible. At a less obvious level, it can be seen in the following common exchange: Why do you believe Christianity is true? Because I have the experience of a personal relationship with God. So how do you know you're not fooling yourself? Because i know it is real. Even as an enthusiastic believer myself I could see this kind of tautology at work, and over time I realized that it is common to all forms of True Belief., regardless of the particular belief in question. The fact is, it's enormously difficult - and you need to be fantastically brave - to overcome the circularity of your own ideologies. But just because our identity might be tied up with what we believe, it doesn't make that belief any more correct. One wishes that True Believers of any sort would learn a little modesty in their convictions.
Derren Brown (Tricks of the Mind)
But your habits undergo no change in this pretense? Or do you think anyone was fooled yesterday by your so-called 'appointment' last night? That is what you told your mother, correct? That you had an appointment?" His eyes came back to hers. "Are we showing signs of jealousy again?" "I'm asking a pertinent question," she said stiffly. "If you think this pretense is going to only be one-sided, then it ends now." Incredibly,his humor returned abruptly, his grin quite wide. "Before you start turning green, I suppose I must admit that appointment wasn't a good word for it, since it wasn't a scheduled meeting. I merely went to see my solicitor,and,no, he doesn't wear skirts." She ignored that ridiculous attempt at a joke.
Johanna Lindsey (A Rogue of My Own (Reid Family, #3))
You can argue with a thousand scholars but not with one fool who thinks he's correct and perfect all the time. It's just simple as a frog in the well thinks its dark, damp well is the whole universe. Secretly trying to imitate, but he knows he cannot change his mindset. He would point out your faults for self satisfaction. Just accept what they say and help them to live a long life!
Heshan Udunuwara
But who, he used to ask, can ever boast of having enough experience? Has even he who flatters himself on being the most experienced of men never been fooled? And then, what man is there who is capable of correctly assessing the circumstances in which he finds himself? The calculations which we make in our heads and the one recorded on the register up above are two very different calculations
Denis Diderot (Jacques the Fatalist)
In testing primality of very large numbers chosen at random, the chance of stumbling upon a value that fools the Fermat test is less than the chance that cosmic radiation will cause the computer to make an error in carrying out a "correct" algorithm. Considering an algorithm to be inadequate for the first reason but not for the second illustrates the difference between mathematics and engineering.
Harold Abelson (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs)
Your perception is correct.I am what you describe." "Which one?The gruff fool or the fair wise man?" Laon inquired,simultaneously releasing a half smile. Ranulf cocked his right brow.It had been a long time since he had done any self-examination, and last time he had,the cpnclusion had been unsettling. "I do not know myself. I probably have the capacity to be either...depending on the conversation." "Fair answer.I think I might like you yet, my lord.
Michele Sinclair (The Christmas Knight)
He soon perceived, however, that the battles which Sir Miles and the rest had waged against armed knights to win a kingdom, were not half so arduous as this which he now undertook to win immortality against the English language. Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition will not need to be told the story in detail; how he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings; snatched at ideas and lost them; saw his book plain before him and it vanished; acted his people's parts as he ate; mouthed them as he walked; now cried; now laughed; vacillated between this style and that; now preferred the heroic and pompous; next the plain and simple; now the vales of Tempe; then the fields of Kent or Cornwall; and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.
Virginia Woolf
People who are in the business of hating the relatively new-fashioned use of “begs the question” hate it vehemently, and they hate it loudly. Unfortunately, subbing in “raises the question” or “inspires the query” or any number of other phrasings fools no one; one can always detect the deleted “begs the question,” a kind of prose pentimento, for those of you who were paying attention in art history class or have read Lillian Hellman’s thrilling if dubiously accurate memoir.
Benjamin Dreyer (Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style)
There are people everywhere who form a Fourth World, or a diaspora of their own. They are the lordly ones. They come in all colours. They can be Christians or Hindus or Muslims or Jews or pagans or atheists. They can be young or old, men or women, soldiers or pacifists, rich or poor. They may be patriots, but they are never chauvinists. They share with each other, across all the nations, common values of humour and understanding. When you are among them you know you will not be mocked or resented, because they will not care about your race, your faith, your sex or your nationality, and they suffer fools if not gladly, at least sympathetically. They laugh easily. They are easily grateful. They are never mean. They are not inhibited by fashion, public opinion or political correctness. They are exiles in their own communities, because they are always in a minority, but they form a mighty nation, if they only knew it. It is the nation of nowhere, and I have come to think that its natural capital is Trieste.
Jan Morris (Trieste and The Meaning of Nowhere)
many to deny. What does it all mean? he wanted to cry. “Maester Cressen, we have visitors.” Pylos spoke softly, as if loath to disturb Cressen’s solemn meditations. Had he known what drivel filled the maester’s head, he would have shouted. “The princess would see the white raven.” Ever correct, Pylos called her princess now, as her lord father was a king. King of a smoking rock in the great salt sea, yet a king nonetheless. “She would see the white raven. Her fool is with her.” The old man turned away from
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
He told her this among other things, very correctly and with a ponderous manliness that masked a real suffering. Loving him not at all she grew sorry for him and kissed him sentimentally one night because he was so charming, a relic of a vanishing generation which lived a priggish and graceful illusion and was being replaced by less gallant fools. Afterward she was glad she had kissed him, for next day when his plane fell fifteen hundred feet at Mineola a piece of a gasolene engine smashed through his heart.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Beautiful and Damned)
I'm talking about your lovely long arms and your perfectly shaped legs... I find I am quite jealous of those stockings for knowing the feel of you, the warmth of you." She shifted, unable to keep still beneath the onslaught of his words. "I'm talking about that corset that hugs you where you are lovely and soft... is it uncomfortable?" She hesitated. "Not usually." "And now?" She heard the knowledge in the question. She nodded once. "It's rather- constricting." He tutted once, and she opened her eyes, instantly meeting his, hot and focused on her. "Poor Pippa. Tell me, with your knowledge of the human body, why do you think that is?" She swallowed, tried for a deep breath. Failed. "It's because my heart is threatening to beat out of my chest." The smile again. "Have you overexerted yourself?" She shook her head. "No." "What, then?" She was not a fool. He was pushing her. Attempting to see how far she would go. She told the truth. "I think it is you." He closed his eyes then, hands fisting again, and pressed his head back against the side of the desk, exposing the long column of his neck and his tightly clenched jaw. Her mouth went dry at the movement, at the way the tendons there bunched and rippled, and she was quite desperate to touch him. When he returned his gaze to hers, there was something wild in those pewter depths... something she was at once consumed and terrified by. "You shouldn't be so quick with the truth," he said. "Why?" "It gives me too much control." "I trust you." "You shouldn't." He leaned forward, bracing his arm against his raised knee. "You are not safe with me." She had never once felt unsafe with him. "I don't think that's correct." He laughed, low and dark, and the sound rippled through her, a wave of pleasure and temptation. "You have no idea what I could do to you, Philippa Marbury. The ways I could touch you. The wonders I could show you. I could ruin you without thought, sink with you into the depths of sin and not once regret it. I could lead you right into temptation and never ever look back." The words stole her breath. She wanted it. Every bit of it.
Sarah MacLean (One Good Earl Deserves a Lover (The Rules of Scoundrels, #2))
The history of the own that is grasped on too small a scale and the foreign that is treated too badly reaches an end at the moment when a global co-immunity structure is born, with a respectful inclusion of individual cultures, particular interests and local solidarities. This structure would take on planetary dimensions at the moment when the earth spanned by networks and built over by foams, was conceived as the own, and the previously dominant exploitative excess as the foreign. With this turn, the concretely universal would become operational. The helpless whole is transformed into a unity capable of being protected. A romanticism of brotherliness is replaced by a cooperative logic. Humanity becomes a political concept. Its members are no longer travellers on the ship of fools that is abstract universalism, but workers on the consistently concrete and discrete project of a global immune design. Although communism was a conglomeration of a few correct ideas and many wrong ones, its reasonable part - the understanding that shared life interests of the highest order can only be realized within a horizon of universal co-operative asceticisms - will have to assert itself anew sooner or later. It presses for a macrostructure of global immunizations : co-immunism.
Peter Sloterdijk (Je moet je leven veranderen)
Maester Cressen, we have visitors.” Pylos spoke softly, as if loath to disturb Cressen’s solemn meditations. Had he known what drivel filled the maester’s head, he would have shouted. “The princess would see the white raven.” Ever correct, Pylos called her princess now, as her lord father was a king. King of a smoking rock in the great salt sea, yet a king nonetheless. “She would see the white raven. Her fool is with her.” The old man turned away from the dawn, keeping a hand on his wyvern to steady himself. “Help me to my chair and show them in.” Taking his arm, Pylos led him inside. In his youth, Cressen had walked briskly, but he was
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
8Understand, you senseless among the people; And you fools, when will you be wise? 9†He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see? 10He who cinstructs the dnations, shall He not correct, He who teaches man knowledge? 11The LORD †knows the thoughts of man, That they are futile. 12Blessed is the man whom You †instruct, O LORD, And teach out of Your law, 13That You may give him erest from the days of adversity, Until the pit is dug for the wicked. 14For the LORD will not fcast off His people, Nor will He forsake His inheritance. 15But judgment will return to righteousness, And all the upright in heart will follow it.
Anonymous (Holy Bible, New King James Version)
Perhaps you used to think too much of yourself," returned the curate. "For the greatest fool and rascal in creation there is yet a worse condition, and that is—not to know it, but think himself a respectable man. As the event proves, though you would doubtless have laughed at the idea, you were then capable of committing a murder. I have come to see—at least I think I have—that except a man has God dwelling in him, he may be, or may become, capable of any crime within the compass of human nature." "I don't know anything about God," said Leopold. "I daresay I thought I did before this happened—before I did it, I mean," he added in correction,"—but I know now that I don't, and never did." "Ah, Leopold!" said the curate, "think, if my coming to you comforts you, what would it be to have him who made you always with you!
George MacDonald (Thomas Wingfold, Curate)
That first time, we talked about the servant, who had influenza, but when I came back, we somehow started to talk about Greek poetry. And that led to a discussion, if I remember correctly, of Greek and Roman historians. The count is particularly fond of Thucydides. Since I’d gone to the classical liceo, I could talk about them without making a fool of myself, so the count decided I must be a competent doctor. Now he comes to my office every so often, and we talk about Thucydides and Strabo.’ She leaned back against the wall and crossed her ankles in front of her. ‘He’s very much like my other patients. Most of them come to talk about ailments they don’t have and pain they don’t feel. The count is more interesting to talk to, but I suppose there’s really not much difference between them. He’s lonely and old, just like them, and he needs someone to talk to.
Donna Leon (Death at La Fenice (Commissario Brunetti, #1))
In the afternoon he sat in the compound breaking ore samples with a hammer, the feldspar rich in red oxide of copper and native nuggets in whose organic lobations he purported to read news of the earth's origins, holding an extemporary lecture in geology to a small gathering who nodded and spat. A few would quote to him scripture to confound his ordering up of eons out of the ancient chaos and other apostate supposings. The judge smiled. Books lie, he said. God dont lie. No, said the judge, he does not. And these are his words. He held up a chunk of rock. He speaks in stones and trees, the bones of things. The squatters in their rags nodded among themselves and were soon reckoning him correct, this man of learning, in all his speculations, and this the judge encouraged until they were right proselytes of the new order whereupon he laughed at them for fools.
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West)
I used to doubt the Fool when he told me that all of time was a great circuit, and that we are ever doomed to repeat what has been done before. But the older I get, the more I see it is so. I thought then that he meant one great circle entrapped all of us. Instead, I think we are born into our circuits. Like a colt on the end of a training line, we trot in the circular path ordained for us. We go faster, we slow down, we halt on command and we begin again. And each time we think the circle is something new. Each circle spins off a circle of its own. Each one seems a new thing but in truth it is not. It is just our most recent attempts to correct old errors, to undo old wrongs done to us and to make up for things we have neglected. In each cycle, we may correct old errors, but I think we make as many new ones. Yet what is our alternative? To commit the same old errors again? Perhaps having the courage to find a better path is having the courage to risk making new mistakes.
Robin Hobb (Golden Fool (Tawny Man, #2))
Dr. Awolesi will be proven correct in her epidemic forecast: the exponentially increased speed with which this rabies virus infects and progresses will aid in its own containment and control. Nine days after Josh and Luis meet Ramola and Natalie a massive pre-exposure vaccination campaign will finally begin in New England for both humans and animals. In concurrence with the quarantine, the vaccination program will be wildly successful and will return the region from the brink of collapse. In the final tally of what will be considered the end of the epidemic (but not, to be clear, the end of the virus; it will burrow, digging in like a nasty tick; it will migrate; and it will return all but encouraged and welcomed in a country where science and forethought are allowed to be dirty words, where humanity’s greatest invention—the vaccine—is smeared and vilified by narcissistic, purposeful fools [the most dangerous kind], where fear is harvested for fame, profit, and self-esteem), almost ten thousand people will have died.
Paul Tremblay (Survivor Song)
Theseus Within the Labyrinth pt.2 But nobody like Theseus likes a smart girl, always telling him to dress warmly and eat plenty of fiber. She was one of those people who are never in doubt. Had he sharpened his sword, tied his sandals? Without her, of course, he would have never escaped the labyrinth. Why hadn’t he thought of that trick with the ball of yarn? But as he looked down at her sleeping form, this woman who was already carrying his child, maybe he thought of their future together, how she would correctly foretell the mystery or banality behind each locked door. So probably he shook his head and said, Give me a dumb girl any day, and crept back to his ship and sailed away. Of course Ariadne was revenged. She would have told him to change the sails, to take down the black ones, put up the white. She would have reminded him that his father, the king of Athens, was waiting on a high cliff scanning the Aegean for Theseus’s returning ship, white for victory, black for defeat. She would have said how his father would see the black sails, how the grief for the supposed death of his one son would destroy him. But Theseus and his men had brought out the wine and were cruising a calm sea in a small boat filled to the brim with ex-virgins. Who could have blamed him? Until he heard the distant scream and his head shot up to see the black sails and he knew. The girls disappeared, the ship grew quiet except for the lap-lap of the water. Staring toward the spot where his father had tumbled headfirst into the Aegean, Theseus understood he would always be a stupid man with a thick stick, scratching his forehead long after the big event. But think, does he change his mind, turn back the ship, hunt up Ariadne and beg her pardon? Far better to be stupid by himself than smart because she’d been tugging on his arm; better to live in the eternal present with a boatload of ex-virgins than in that dark land of consequences promised by Ariadne, better to live like any one of us, thinking to outwit the darkness, but knowing it will catch us, that we will be surprised like the Minotaur on his couch when the door slams back and the hired gun of our personal destruction bursts upon us, upsetting the good times and scaring the girls. Better to be ignorant, to go into the future as into a long tunnel, without ball of yarn or clear direction, to tiptoe forward like any fool or saint or hero, jumpy, full of second thoughts, and bravely unprepared.
Stephen Dobyns (Velocities: New and Selected Poems, 1966-1992)
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest, In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast; In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer, Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much: Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd; Still by himself, abus'd, or disabus'd; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl'd: The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! Go, wond'rous creature! mount where Science guides, Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun; Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere, To the first good, first perfect, and first fair; Or tread the mazy round his follow'rs trod, And quitting sense call imitating God; As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the Sun. Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule— Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!
Alexander Pope (Essay On Man)
Meantime, let me ask myself one question—Which is better?—To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort—no struggle;—but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester’s mistress; delirious with his love half my time—for he would—oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He did love me—no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is what no man besides will ever be.—But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool’s paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England? Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition (Charlotte Brontë Classics))
Broca’s area is adjacent to the part of the motor-control strip dedicated to the jaws, lip, and tongue, and it was once thought that Broca’s area is involved in the production of language (though obviously not speech per se, because writing and signing are just as affected). But the area seems to be implicated in grammatical processing in general. A defect in grammar will be most obvious in the output, because any slip will lead to a sentence that is conspicuously defective. Comprehension, on the other hand, can often exploit the redundancy in speech to come up with sensible interpretations with little in the way of actual parsing. For example, one can understand The dog bit the man or The apple that the boy is eating is red just by knowing that dogs bite men, boys eat apples, and apples are red. Even The car pushes the truck can be guessed at because the cause is mentioned before the effect. For a century, Broca’s aphasics fooled neurologists by using shortcuts. Their trickery was finally unmasked when psycholinguists asked them to act out sentences that could be understood only by their syntax, like The car is pushed by the truck or The girl whom the boy is pushing is tall. The patients gave the correct interpretation half the time and its opposite half the time—a mental coin flip.
Steven Pinker (The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language)
One day, Methodist circuit rider Jesse Lee downtime self accosted by two lawyers: "You are a preacher, sir?" "Yes, I generally pass for one," replied Lee. "You preach very often, I suppose?" "Generally every day; frequently twice a day, or more." "How do you find time to study, when you preach so often?" "I study when writing," said Lee. "And read when resting," he added, maintaining a smile, though he could see now where they were heading. The first lawyer feigned incredulity. "But do you not write your sermons?" "No, not very often, at least." "Do you not often make mistakes preaching extemporaneously?" the second lawyer queried. Lee nodded. "I do, sometimes." "Well, do you correct them?" "That depends on the character of the mistake. I was preaching the other day, and I went to quote the text, 'All liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone,' and by mistake I said, 'All lawyers shall have their part--'" The first lawyer interrupted him. "What did you do with that? Did you correct it?" "Oh, no, it was so nearly true I didn't bother." "Humph!" said one of the lawyers looking at the other, "I don't know whether you are more a knave than a fool!" Neither," replied Lee smiling, and looking at the one on his right and the one on his left, "I'd say I was just between the two.
Peter Marshall (From Sea to Shining Sea: God's Plan for America Unfolds)
Specifically, the awareness that I claim is demonstrably non-computational is our understanding of the properties of natural numbers 0,1,2,3,4,....(One might even say that our concept of a natural number is, in a sense, a form of non-geometric 'visualization'.) We shall see in 2.5, by a readily accessible form of Godel's theorem (cf. response to query Q16), that this understanding is something that cannot be simulated computationally. From time to time one hears that some computer system has been 'trained' so as to 'understand' the concept of natural numbers. However, this cannot be true, as we shall see. It is our awareness of what a 'number' can actually mean that enables us to latch on to the correct concept. When we have this correct concept, we can-at least in principle-provide the correct answers to families of questions about numbers that are put to us, when no finite set of rules can do this. With only rules and no direct awareness, a computer-controlled robot (like Deep Thought) would be necessarily limited in ways in which we are not limited ourselves-although if we give the robot clever enough rules for its behaviour it may perform prodigious feats, some of which lie far beyond unaided human capabilities in specific narrowly enough defined areas, and it might be able to fool us, for some while, into thinking that it also possesses awareness.
Roger Penrose (Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness)
Secret Door" Fools on parade cavort and carry on For waiting eyes That you would rather be beside than in front of But she's never been the kind to be hollowed by the stares She swam out of tonight's phantasm Grabbed my hand and made it very clear There's absolutely nothing for us here It's a magnolia celebration To be attempted on a Wednesday night It's better than to get a reputation As a miserable little tyke At least that's the conclusion She came to in this overture The secret door swings behind us She's saying nothing She's just giggling along Her arms were folded most indignant Not looking like she was soon to leave I had to squint in order to believe And then like a butler pushing on a bookshelf I'm unveiling the unexpected I, who was earlier reluctant, was suddenly embarrassed and corrected How could such a creature Survive in such a habitat The secret door swings behind us She's saying nothing She's just giggling along And even if they were to find us I wouldn't notice, I'm completely occupied At all the fools on parade Cavort and carry on for waiting eyes That you would rather be beside than in front of But she's never been the kind To be hollowed by the stares Fools on parade Frolic and fuck about to make her gaze Turn to a scribble on a page by a picture That holds her options But you're daft to think she'd care Fools on parade [3x] Conduct a sing-along
Arctic Monkey's
On the eve of my move to New York, my parents sat me down to talk. “Your mother and I understand that we have a certain responsibility to prepare you for life at a coed institution,” said my father. “Have you ever heard of oxytocin?” I shook my head. “It’s the thing that’s going to make you crazy,” my mother said, swirling the ice in her glass. “You’ll lose all the good sense I’ve worked so hard to build up in you since the day you were born.” She was kidding. “Oxytocin is a hormone released during copulation,” my father went on, staring at the blank wall behind me. “Orgasm,” my mother whispered. “Biologically, oxytocin serves a purpose,” my father said. “That warm fuzzy feeling.” “It’s what bonds a couple together. Without it, the human species would have gone extinct a long time ago. Women experience its effects more powerfully than men do. It’s good to be aware of that.” “For when you’re thrown out with yesterday’s trash,” my mother said. “Men are dogs. Even professors, so don’t be fooled.” “Men don’t attach as easily. They’re more rational,” my father corrected her. After a long pause, he said, “We just want you to be careful.” “He means use a rubber.” “And take these.” My father gave me a small, pink, shell-shaped compact of birth control pills. “Gross,” was all I could say. “And your father has cancer,” my mother said. I said nothing. “Prostate isn’t like breast,” my father said, turning away. “They do surgery, and you move on.” “The man always dies first,” my mother whispered.
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
When he was gone the men on the bench began to laugh. One of them rose to better see the map. Es un fantasma, he said. Fantasma? Sí, sí. Claro. Cómo? Cómo? Porque el viejo está loco es como. Loco? Billy stood looking at the map. No es correcto? he said. The man threw up his hands. He said that what they beheld was but a decoration. He said that anyway it was not so much a question of a correct map but of any map at all. He said that in that country were fires and earthquakes and floods and that one needed to know the country itself and not simply the landmarks therein. Besides, he said, when had that old man last journeyed to those mountains? Or journeyed anywhere at all? His map was after all not really so much a map as a picture of a voyage. And what voyage was that? And when? Un dibujo de un viaje, he said. Un viaje pasado, un viaje antigun. He threw up one hand in dismissal. As if no more could be said. Billy looked at the other three men on the bench. They watched with a certain brightness of eye so that he wondered if he were being made a fool of. But the one seated at the right leaned forward and tapped the ash from his cigarette and addressed the man standing and said that as far as that went there were certainly other dangers to a journey than losing one's way. He said that plans were one thing and journeys another. He said it was a mistake to discount the good will inherent in the old man's desire to guide them for it too must be taken into account and would in itself lend strength and resolution to them in their journey. The man who was standing weighed these words and then erased them in the air before him with a slow fanning motion of his forefinger. He said that the jovenes could hardly be expected to apportion credence in the matter of the map. He said that in any case a bad map was worse than no map at all for it engendered in the traveler a false confidence and might easily cause him to set aside those instincts which would otherwise guide him if he would but place himself in their care. He said that to follow a false map was to invite disaster. He gestured at the sketching in the dirt. As if to invite them to behold its futility. The second man on the bench nodded his agreement in this and said that the map in question was a folly and that the dogs in the street would piss upon it. But man on the right only smiled and said that for that matter the dogs would piss upon their graves as well and how was this an argument? The man standing said that what argued for one case argued for all and that in any event our graves make no claims outside of their own simple coordinates and no advice as to how to arrive there but only the assurance that arrive we shall. It may even be that those who lie in desecrated graves-by dogs of whatever manner-could have words of a more cautionary nature and better suited to the realities of the world. At this the man at the left who'd so far not spoke at all rose laughing and gestured for the two boys to follow and they went with him out of the square and into the street leaving the disputants to their rustic parkbench tertulia.
Cormac McCarthy (The Crossing (The Border Trilogy, #2))
I hope Lily told you how happy I was by the offer to marry your commander." "She mentioned it," Ranulf grimaced. "Who knows? Maybe Rolande and I will meet and decide to stay together, forgoing the annulment." Ranulf rocked back on his feet, picking up the basin, and stood up, causing water to slosh on to the floor from the abrupt movement. She sounded so damn happy. He plopped the water bowl back on its table. And why shouldn't she be? "You will like my commander. He is as handsome as Lillabet is beautiful." Pain flashed in Bronwyn's eyes, turning them dark, almost black. If Ranulf's aim had been to hurt,he had struck true, resulting in a desire to inflict similar anguish. "As long as he doesn't lie to me and make me out the fool, I will be content." "I suspect he won't if you don't lie to him first." Bronwyn pushed herself out of the chair as a frisson of anger shot up her spine. "Maybe I won't if he doesn't order me away from my home without the courage to look me in the eye when he does so." "I never pretended to be someone else." "In that you are correct, my lord.You made it very clear from the beginning that you were a hateful man," she seethed. "Didn't seem to bother you when you used your female wiles to entice me to your bed," Ranulf hissed back. Bronwyn marched over to the door and swung it wide open. "I wonder just how my sister will deal with your barbarism. She is sweet,beautiful, and innocent,but she also knows nothing about running a castle.So preprare yourself,my lord.In a few months you will have a rundown estate and no commander either,for after I use my feminine wiles on him, I doubt we will be staying here at Hunswick.
Michele Sinclair (The Christmas Knight)
Pagans were not impressed by the torture of Christians merely because it showed that they honestly held their opinion; they knew that millions of people honestly held all sorts of opinions. The point of such extreme martyrdom is much more subtle. It is that it gives an appearance of a man having something quite specially strong to back him up, of his drawing upon some power. And this can only be proved when all his physical contentment is destroyed; when all the current of his bodily being is reversed and turned to pain. If a man is seen to be roaring with laughter all the time that he is skinned alive, it would not be unreasonable to deduce that somewhere in the recesses of his mind he had thought of a rather good joke. Similarly, if men smiled and sang (as they did) while they were being boiled or torn in pieces, the spectators felt the presence of something more than mere mental honesty: they felt the presence of some new and unintelligible kind of pleasure, which, presumably, came from somewhere. It might be a strength of madness, or a lying spirit from Hell; but it was something quite positive and extraordinary; as positive as brandy and as extraordinary as conjuring. The Pagan said to himself: "If Christianity makes a man happy while his legs are being eaten by a lion, might it not make me happy while my legs are still attached to me and walking down the street?" The Secularists laboriously explain that martyrdoms do not prove a faith to be true, as if anybody was ever such a fool as to suppose that they did. What they did prove, or, rather, strongly suggest, was that something had entered human psychology which was stronger than strong pain. If a young girl, scourged and bleeding to death, saw nothing but a crown descending on her from God, the first mental step was not that her philosophy was correct, but that she was certainly feeding on something.
G.K. Chesterton (All Things Considered)
A Fool Stands at an akimbo, Head swollen disproportionately. Loquacious. Boastful. But he is an empty barrel That talks an infinite deal of nonsense. He is a fool. He is naked; But he discerns it not. He is shallow - Lacking depth and sound judgment. But he thinks he is full, complete. He is a fool. Wisdom makes a defining shout, But he hearkens not. Correction drums violently into his ears, But all he hears is an applause From an orchestra of his sycophants. He is a fool. He casts contemptuous glances at discretion. He sees with one eye, Tainted by arrogance. His only hearing ear Is fitted with impervious filter of pride. He is a fool.
Abiodun Fijabi
Kit caught Will’s eye, and the smile he sent down might have melted Will like a candle end. Lovesick fool, Will thought, and looked down before someone could notice his silly grin and draw an entirely correct conclusion.
Elizabeth Bear (Hell and Earth (Promethean Age, #4))
the issue of global warming involves scientists and politicians who all have a vested interest in the consensus being correct. This has led to a research environment that is incentivized to avoid any lines of research that might cast doubt on the idea of humanity as the primary cause of global warming.
Roy W. Spencer (The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists)
There is an old story of an astrologer who came to a king and said, “You are going to die in six months.” The king was frightened out of his wits and was almost about to die then and there from fear. But his minister was a clever man, and this man told the king that these astrologers were fools. The king would not believe him. So the minister saw no other way to make the king see that they were fools but to invite the astrologer to the palace again. There he asked him if his calculations were correct. The astrologer said that there could not be a mistake, but to satisfy him he went through the whole of the calculations again and then said that they were perfectly correct. The king’s face became livid. The minister said to the astrologer, “And when do you think that you will die?” “In twelve years”, was the reply. The minister quickly drew his sword and separated the astrologer’s head from the body and said to the king, “Do you see this liar? He is dead this moment.
Vivekananda (Meditation and Its Methods by Swami Vivekananda)
We correct history, reconstructing the past so that it will be consistent with the present, reaffirming our sense of self and place in the world. We reconstruct history every day, not to fool others but to fool ourselves, because it is integral to the process of going on.8 So we would expect that, in addition to the initial failure to register the teleconference fully, the effects of forgetting, the media effect on personal recollections, and the intentional self-protection in response to occupational risk, accounts of that evening would also be affected by the unconscious editing that goes on as people attempt to rescue order from disorder—perhaps driven in this case by a need to be guiltless, a need to have been “correct.
Diane Vaughan (The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA)
Send that shadowsinger of yours to track Briallyn,” Jurian ordered, his face grave. “If she’s somehow capable of capturing a unit of Fae soldiers, we need to know how. Swiftly.” Spoken like the general Jurian had once been. Cassian said to Vassa, “You really think Briallyn would do something like this? Be that blatant? Someone has to be trying to fool us into going after her.” Lucien asked, “How would she even get here and vanish that quickly? Crossing the sea takes weeks. She’d need to winnow to pull it off.” “The queens can winnow,” Jurian corrected. “They did so during the war, remember?” But Vassa said, “Only when several of us are together. And it is not winnowing as the Fae do, but a different power. It’s akin to the way all seven High Lords can combine their powers to perform miracles.” Well, fuck.
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
Kim Dokja x Hansooyoung PART 1 [I shall kill you, Yoo Joonghyuk.] ~ Kim Dokja pg 4110 46. ⸢(Looks like you still don't know how it works. The heroine loses her consciousness, her hand falling away. And the male hero awakens! You see, in all the movies I've seen so far…) pg 4112 47. These idiots, I even died so that you two could talk to each other, but this…' She figured that she really needed to give these two men a harsh earful when she arrived there. But, when she pushed past the bushes and stepped forward, the ensuing spectacle freaked her out in a rather grand manner. Kwa-aaang!! Bang!!! Yoo Joonghyuk was mercilessly slamming his sword down on Kim Dokja, currently sprawled out on the ground. "Hey!! You crazy son of a bitch!!" pg 4125 48. There were plenty of things she wanted to ask, but she chose not to. Instead, she poked Kim Dokja's cheek and spoke up. "Still, this guy looks like he got completely fooled, doesn't he." "Looks that way." "How did it go?" "He went crazy and attacked me." Han Sooyoung smirked and lightly pinched Kim Dokja's cheek as if she was proud of him. pg 4127 49. the events of her dying at Yoo Joonghyuk's sword, me fighting against him, and then, passing out from his attack, and finally, sharing a conversation with Yoo Sangah inside the Library… Han Sooyoung approached the bed before I noticed it and pinched my cheek. "In any case, Kim Dokja. You can be really adorable sometimes." pg 4144 50. The moment Han Sooyoung's fist bumped into mine, she was completely enveloped in bright light. As I watched her figure disappear, I became aware once more that she had become my companion for real. pg 4165 51. ⸢And…⸥ My heart began powerfully pounding away. ⸢The woman that I used to love.⸥ pg 4189 52. Her emotionless eyes; the beauty spot just below one of them; and her lips that always mocked me for fun, now arching up in a smooth line. "Proceed with the execution pg 4191 53. "But, should you be doing something like that? She's originally your bride, isn't she?" "Correction. She was supposed to be one. The throne was usurped on the first day of the wedding, however." Oh, I see. So, it's that sort of development? I felt just a bit relieved now. Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk as a couple? hadn't allowed any dating at the workplace yet, so hell no. pg 4202 54. ⸢By the time you're reading this book, I…⸥ I steeled my heart and read the next line of the text. ⸢…I'd still be living a pretty good life, I guess. Hahah, were you scared?⸥ This idiot… pg 4212 55. The following words were eerily similar to a certain body of text that I was familiar with. ⸢The you reading this story will definitely make it out of here alive.⸥ Han Sooyoung's afterwords came to an end there. For the longest time, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the full-stop at the end of the sentencepg4216 56. "Looks like the company's internal rules need to be changed somewhat…" pg 4234 57. She spoke in a fed-up tone of voice. And then, issued an order to me. "Marry me, Ricardo Von Kaizenix." pg 4244 58. "I didn't want to extend her 50 years by even one minute if I could help it." I was being serious here. The moment I arrived in this world and realized that Han Sooyoung had to spend 50 years here, I just couldn't escape from this one overwhelming emotion. Someone was sacrificed again because of me. Han Sooyoung who had to endure the time frame of 50 years – could she still maintain a normal, functioning mind? Was she able to maintain the ego of the Han Sooyoung that I know of?pg4254 59. Her palm smacked me in the back of the head again. God damn it, this punk… "The third method, 'Romance'." "And its contents are?" "Marry Yuri di Aristel." "And just what did you choose?" "The third method?" "And are we currently married?" "Nope." "And why the hell not?!" pg 4256
shing shong (OMNISCIENT READER'S VIEWPOINT (light novel vol2))
I bartered with their kin in the northern continent,” Falkan corrected, that grim smile remaining. Along with shadows. So many shadows. “Nearly three years ago. Some might deem it a fool’s bargain, but I walked away with a hundred yards of Spidersilk.
Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #0.1–0.5, 1–7))
Only a fool despises a parent’s[*] discipline; whoever learns from correction is wise.
Anonymous (Holy Bible Text Edition NLT: New Living Translation)
But that has nothing to do with gods! It is only about power! And why must it come to a war between this way or that? "Because me are fools." "But you chose a life among men, at a monastery," Angharad pointed out. Brother Thomas did not smile. "And now I am a hermit, living in the woods." "A culdee," she corrected him. "Why did you leave?" "I fell out with the priest there, and I wished to be closer to God. That is all you need know." "You're god or mine?" Angharad asked. Brother Thomas looked amused. "Are they not one and the same?
Signe Pike (The Forgotten Kingdom (The Lost Queen, #2))
The volunteers in our study would discard their own correct beliefs and adopt the false ones of others as long as everyone in the group, unanimously, supported the wrong answer. Yet if one other person gave the correct answer, the volunteers would stick to their original beliefs. In other words, even in a swarm, one divergent voice can cause others to act independently. You are influenced by others, but do not be fooled—others are also influenced by you. This is why your actions and choices matter not only for your own life but for the behavior of those around you.
Tali Sharot (The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others)
People rarely feel as though they’re in caves. They don’t notice until they’ve gotten out and can look back. (The simplest way to illustrate this for yourself is to think about what a fool your younger self was.) So it helps to have provocations that suggest how much we don’t understand but might. To put it more plainly, nobody walks through life feeling like an idiot, though you can no doubt think of plenty of people who fit that description, and it fits all of us from a certain point of view. Idiocy is a relative state and an invisible one to its occupant. People vary widely in how much wisdom they have, but not in their sense of how much they have; anyone’s felt sense of wisdom at any given time tends to be high and stable. It’s tempting to describe that feeling as a constant in the workings of the mind, because that is how it usually seems—but Socrates himself shows that it can vary between people. So let’s just call that sensation of one’s own wisdom a deceptive, insidious, and stubborn feature of human nature. This is the root of the problem that Socrates means to address; it is the master mistake that makes all other mistakes more likely, over a lifetime and by the hour. The Socratic method is a way to correct for it.
Ward Farnsworth (The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook)
This is one of the primary mechanisms whereby, if a fool says the sun is shining, we do not correctly discard this as irrelevant nonevidence, but rather find ourselves impelled to say that it must be dark outside.
Eliezer Yudkowsky (Brain, Belief, and Politics (Cato Unbound Book 92011))
The Mysterious Letter You get an anonymous letter on January 2nd informing you that the market will go up during the month. It proves to be true, but you disregard it owing to the well known January effect (stocks have gone up historically during January). Then you receive another one on Feb 1st telling you that the market will go down. Again, it proves to be true. Then you get another letter on March 1st –same story. By July you are intrigued by the prescience of the anonymous person until you are asked to invest in a special offshore fund. You pour all your savings into it. Two months later, your money is gone. You go spill your tears on your neighbor's shoulder and he tells you that he remembers that he received two such mysterious letters. But the mailings stopped at the second letter. He recalls that the first one was correct in its prediction, the other incorrect. What happened? The trick is as follows. The con operator pulls 10,000 names out of a phone book. He mails a bullish letter to one half of the sample, and a bearish one to the other half. The following month he selects the names of the persons to whom he mailed the letter whose prediction turned out to be right, that is, 5000 names. The next month he does the same with the remaining 2500 names, until the list narrows down to 500 people. Of these there will be 200 victims. An investment in a few thousand dollars worth of postage stamps will turn into several million.
Fooled By Randomness Nassim Taleb
Revering God Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Only fools despise wisdom and discipline. Proverbs 1:7 As we look at the state of the world around us, at what has happened in the past and what we may face in the year ahead, there is much to fear: Will a sniper terrorize our community as has happened in other areas? Will the bottom fall out of the economy? Will my job be jeopardized? Will there be violence at my child’s school? Fear about possibilities like these can consume us, producing increased stress and even illness. But today’s verse tells us that there is only one thing to fear—God himself. This fear is not an unhealthy fear that leads to cringing and hiding as Adam and Eve did after they had disobeyed God. Rather, it is a humble and honest recognition of God’s beauty, sovereignty, and preeminence so that worshiping and serving him take first place in our lives. It is a healthy reverence that leads to intimacy and an understanding that the power of God residing in us by his Spirit is greater than the power of our fears or of our enemy Satan. A deep sense of awe about who God is leads to the true knowledge and wisdom we desperately need for our lives today and in the year ahead.   LORD, develop in me a deep reverence of you that leads to life, wisdom, and greater intimacy with you. Open my heart to be teachable and to receive correction and discipline willingly. Grant that I would fear you, Father, and not my circumstances in the present or the what-ifs of the future. May I be so filled with your love that faith would replace my fear.   WHILE WE MUST NEVER ON THE ONE HAND LOSE THE FREEDOM TO ENTER BOLDLY AND JOYFULLY BY FAITH INTO GOD’S PRESENCE DURING OUR LIVES ON EARTH, WE MUST ALSO LEARN HOW TO REVERE GOD IN OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM. . . . INTIMACY CANNOT OCCUR WITHOUT RESPECT. John White
Cheri Fuller (The One Year Praying through the Bible: Experience the Power of the Bible Through Prayer (One Year Bible))
Fear the people, then, Excellency. They consider John a prophet." Salome now tilted her head upward and stared directly into the eyes of Antipas in an unmistakeably challenging expression. Her mien spoke eloquently what remained unspoken: "I dare you to break your word, Tetrarch Herod Antipas, in front of all your guests." Pilate, at the outer edge of that stare, caught the smirk of success spelled out by Salome's limpid blue eyes and firmly pressing, perfect lips. But he did not intervene. He had overheard Chuza's advice to Antipas, and it was obviously correct. Only a fool would fail to heed it, and the Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea was no fool. But Pilate was a Roman, a practical man who could temper absolutes to suit circumstances, as Rome herself had been doing for the last seven hundred years. Here in the East, however, absolutes were not so easily adjusted, and the spoken word was thought to have a power all its own.
Paul L. Maier (Pontius Pilate)
My son, hear thy father’s instruction, and forsake not thy mother’s teaching. 9 For they shall be a comely ornament unto thine head, and as chains for thy neck. 10 My son, if sinners do entice thee, consent thou not. 11 If they say, Come with us, we will lay wait for blood, and lie privily for the innocent without a cause: 12 We will swallow them up alive like a grave even whole, as those that go down into the pit: 13 We shall find all precious riches, and fill our houses with spoil: 14 Cast in thy lot among us: we will all have one purse: 15 My son, walk not thou in the way with them: refrain thy foot from their path. 16 For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. 17 Certainly as without cause the net is spread before the eyes of all that hath wing: 18 So they lay wait for blood and lie privily for their lives. 19 Such are the ways of everyone that is greedy of gain: he would take away the life of the owners thereof. 20 Wisdom crieth without: she uttereth her voice in the streets. 21 She calleth in the high street, among the prease in the enterings of the gates, and uttereth her words in the city, saying, 22 O ye foolish, how long will ye love foolishness? and the scornful take their pleasure in scorning, and the fools hate knowledge? 23 (Turn you at my correction: lo, I will pour out my mind unto you, and make you understand my words) 24 Because I have called, and ye refused: I have stretched out mine hand, and none would regard. 25 But ye have despised all my counsel, and would none of my correction. 26 I will also laugh at your destruction, and mock, when your fear cometh. 27 When your fear cometh like sudden desolation, and your destruction shall come like a whirlwind: when affliction and anguish shall come upon you, 28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer: they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me, 29 Because they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord. 30 They would none of my counsel, but despised all my correction. 31 Therefore shall they eat of ye fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. 32 For ease slayeth the foolish, and the prosperity of fools destroyeth them. 33 But he that obeyeth me, shall dwell safely, and be quiet from fear of evil.
Proverbs
Seeing her smile—at him, at the horses, at the day—Hazlit realized how closely confined she’d kept herself with him thus far. Her smiles had been merely pretty, her courtesy ruthlessly correct, her conversation guarded—except for that kiss, of course. The kiss he’d nipped in the bud because he wasn’t a complete fool. “Is
Grace Burrowes (Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (The Duke's Daughters, #2; Windham, #5))
Badgerlock, I rather think …" "Prince FitzChivalry," I corrected him. I looked him up and down. "And do not make that mistake again." "Prince FitzChivalry," he accepted the correction. He opened his mouth and then shut it again. I turned away from him, holding his horse’s reins and Thick’s. "That wasn’t the mistake," I said without looking back. "I meant your trying to think.
Robin Hobb (Fool's Quest (The Fitz and the Fool, #2))
There are people everywhere who form a Fourth World, or a diaspora of their own. They are the lordly ones! They come in all colours. They can be Christians or Hindus or Muslims or Jews or pagans or atheists. They can be young or old, men or women, soldiers or pacifists, rich or poor. They may be patriots, but they are never chauvinists. They share with each other, across all the nations, common values of humour and understanding. When you are among them you know you will not be mocked or resented, because they will not care about your race, your faith, your sex or your nationality, and they suffer fools if not gladly, at least sympathetically. They laugh easily. They are easily grateful. They are never mean. They are not inhibited by fashion, public opinion or political correctness. They are exiles in their own communities, because they are always in a minority, but they form a mighty nation, if they only knew it. It is the nation of nowhere, and I have come to think that its natural capital is Trieste.
Jan Morris (Trieste And Meaning Of Nowhere)
You can’t go to Bradshaw’s. Reasons of morality and safety aside, you don’t even know where the hell it is.” Amelia didn’t flinch at the profanity. “I assume a great deal of business is sent back and forth between your establishment and Bradshaw’s. You say the place is nearby, which means all I have to do is follow the foot traffic from here to there. Goodbye, Mr. Rohan. I appreciate your help.” Cam moved to block her path. “All you’ll accomplish is making a fool of yourself, Miss Hathaway. You won’t get past the front door. A brothel like Bradshaw’s doesn’t take strangers off the street.” “How I manage to retrieve my brother, sir, is no concern of yours.” She was correct. It wasn’t. But Cam hadn’t been this entertained in a long time. No sensual depravities, no skilled courtesan, not even a room full of unclothed women, could have interested him half as much as Miss Amelia Hathaway and her red ribbons. “I’m going with you,” he said. She frowned. “No, thank you.” “I insist.” “I don’t need your services, Mr. Rohan.” Cam could think of a number of services she was clearly in need of, most of which would be a pleasure for him to provide. “Obviously it will be to everyone’s benefit for you to retrieve Ramsay and leave London as quickly as possible. I consider it my civic duty to hasten your departure.
Lisa Kleypas (Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways, #1))
1 My son, forget not thou my Law, but let thine heart keep my commandments. 2 For they shall increase the length of thy days and the years of life, and thy prosperity. 3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them on thy neck, and write them upon the table of thine heart. 4 So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own wisdom. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy ways. 7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: but fear the Lord, and depart from evil. 8 So health shall be unto thy navel, and marrow unto thy bones. 9 Honor the Lord with thy riches, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase. 10 So shall thy barns be filled with abundance, and thy presses shall burst with new wine. 11 My son, refuse not the chastening of the Lord, neither be grieved with his correction. 12 For the Lord correcteth him, whom he loveth, even as the father doeth the child in whom he delighteth. 13 Blessed is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. 14 For the merchandise thereof is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof is better than gold. 15 It is more precious than pearls: and all things that thou canst desire, are not to be compared unto her. 16 Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and glory. 17 Her ways are ways of pleasure, and all her paths prosperity. 18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her, and blessed is he that retaineth her. 19 The Lord by wisdom hath laid the foundation of the earth, and hath established the heavens through understanding. 20 By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew. 21 My son, let not these things depart from thine eyes, but observe wisdom, and counsel. 22 So they shall be life to thy soul, and grace unto thy neck. 23 Then shalt thou walk safely by thy way: and thy foot shall not stumble. 24 If thou sleepest, thou shalt not be afraid, and when thou sleepest, thy sleep shall be sweet. 25 Thou shalt not fear for any sudden fear, neither for the destruction of the wicked, when it cometh. 26 For the Lord shall be for thine assurance, and shall preserve thy foot from taking. 27 Withhold not the good from the owners thereof, though there be power in thine hand to do it. 28 Say not unto thy neighbor, Go and come again, and tomorrow will I give thee, if thou now have it. 29 Intend none hurt against thy neighbor, seeing he doeth dwell without fear by thee. 30 Strive not with a man causeless, when he hath done thee no harm. 31 Be not envious for the wicked man, neither choose any of his ways. 32 For the froward is abomination unto the Lord: but his secret is with the righteous. 33 The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the righteous. 34 With the scornful he scorneth, but he giveth grace unto the humble. 35 The wise shall inherit glory: but fools dishonor, though they be exalted.
Proverbs
Know what you know. Most people oversimplify Occam’s razor to mean the simplest answer is usually correct. But the real meaning, what the Franciscan friar William of Ockham really wanted to emphasize, is that you shouldn’t complicate, that you shouldn’t “stack” a theory if a simpler explanation was at the ready. Pare it down. Prune the excess. Andrew
Harlan Coben (Fool Me Once)
When I read and watch Donald Trump shrug off or Twitter away that global warming is a hoax, his brushoffs don’t have the fire and passion of other things he off-handedly rejects. It’s a good sign recognizable to anyone loving Geminis in his or her life. I have a dear elder brother who’s an intellectually vibrant Gemini. I’ve also delved deep into the romantic and psychological depths with a lover born under the sign of “The Twins.” Thus from long and first-hand experience I contend that I can correctly sense the moment a Gemini’s stance on something is going void of course. There’s a little less feistiness. A tone of indifference grows. I can detect the subtle disengagement growing in Trump’s voice. If I’m not being fooled that there isn’t a new descent into deeper disinterest, the change in tone foreshadows a Gemini minded man or woman is about to shift gears
John Hogue (Trump for President: Astrological Predictions)