Judgment Quotes - page 52
During the American Constitutional Convention, just before the convention, there was in Hartford, Conn., one day a storm which overcast the United States, and in that religious day men fell on their knees and begged a final blessing before the end came. The Connecticut House of Representatives was in session and many of the members clamored for immediate adjournment. The speaker of the house, one Colonel Davenport, came to his feet and he silenced the din with these words: "The day of judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles may be brought."
I hope in a dark and uncertain period in our own country that we, too, may bring candles to help light our country's way.
Abraham Davenport
I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius, and Health, and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation - to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others.
Hippocrates
If perchance there should be foolish speakers who, together with those ignorant of all mathematics, will take it upon themselves to decide concerning these things, and because of some place in the Scriptures wickedly distorted to their purpose, should dare to assail this my work, they are of no importance to me, to such an extent do I despise their judgment as rash. For it is not unknown that Lactantius, the writer celebrated in other ways but very little in mathematics, spoke somewhat childishly of the shape of the earth when he derided those who declared the earth had the shape of a ball. So it ought not to surprise students if such should laugh at us also. Mathematics is written for mathematicians to whom these our labors, if I am not mistaken, will appear to contribute something even to the ecclesiastical state the headship of which your Holiness now occupies.(Author's preface to de revolutionibus)
Nicolaus Copernicus
That which enables man to have a real relation to truth and which removes his temptation to lie, must be something independent of all time, something absolutely unchangeable, which as faithfully reproduces the old as if it were new, because it is permanent itself; it can only be that source in which all discrete experiences unite and which creates from the first a continuous existence. It is what produces the feeling of responsibility which oppresses all men, young and old, as to their actions, which makes them know that they are responsible, which leads to the phenomena of repentance and consciousness of sin, which calls to account before an eternal and ever present self things that are long past, its judgment being subtler and more comprehensive than that of any court of law or of the laws of society, and which is exerted by the individual himself quite independently of all social codes (so condemning the moral psychology which would derive morality from the social life of man).
Otto Weininger
To say... that the motion of the Earth meeting with the motion of the Lunar Orb, the concurrence of them occasioneth the Ebbing and Flowing [of the seas], is an absolute vanity, not onely because it is not exprest, nor seen how it should so happen, but the falsity is obvious, for that the Revolution of the Earth is not contrary to the motion of the Moon, but is towards the same way. So that all that hath been hitherto said, and imagined by others, is, in my judgment, altogether invalid. But amongst all the famous men that have philosophated upon this admirable effect of Nature, I more wonder at Kepler than any of the rest, who being of a free and piercing wit, and having the motion ascribed to the Earth, before him, hath for all that given his ear and assent to the Moons predominancy over the Water, and to occult properties, and such like trifles.
Johannes Kepler
He said: Do you then understand what you worship -- You and your forefathers? -- Surely they are an enemy to me, except the Lord of the worlds,
Who created me, then He shows me the way,
And Who gives me to eat and to drink,
And when I am sick, He heals me,
And Who will cause me to die, then give me life,
And Who, I hope, will forgive me my mistakes on the day of Judgment.
Abraham
He will better comprehend the foundations and measures of decency and justice, and have livelier, and more lasting impressions of what he ought to do, by giving his opinion on cases propos'd, and reasoning with his tutor on fit instances, than by giving a silent, negligent, sleepy audience to his tutor's lectures; and much more than by captious logical disputes, or set declamations of his own, upon any question. The one sets the thoughts upon wit and false colours, and not upon truth; the other teaches fallacy, wrangling, and opiniatry; and they are both of them things that spoil the judgment, and put a man out of the way of right and fair reasoning; and therefore carefully to be avoided by one who would improve himself, and be acceptable to others.
John Locke