Thursday, July 14, 2011

Koans of Doubt

"The wisest of all the Hellenes is Socrates."
-the Pythia of Delphi

"If I am acclaimed the wisest of the Hellenes, it must be because I alone know that I know nothing."
-Socrates
...
"Several years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation..."
-René Descartes
...
" 'I became incredulous. Or I regretted having been credulous. I began to doubt.' "

" 'Fool! Only the true initiate knows that he does not know!' "
-Umberto Eco
...
"To defend everything is to defend nothing."
-Frederick the Great
...
"Those who are filled with emptiness
Need not fear tigers and rhinos in the wilds,
Nor wear armour and shields in battle;
The rhinoceros finds no place in them for its horn,
The tiger no place for its claw,
The soldier no place for a weapon,
For death finds no place in them."
-Lao Tzu
...
"Like faith needs a doubt, like a freeway out."
-Bono
...
Take up the armor of Socrates, my friends.
-Uzzah the Ox-cart driver

-------

Googlebombing for a cause: www.minnesotangos.org

No comments: