This is the argumentum ad verecundiam. It consists in making an appeal to authority rather than reason, and in using such an authority as may suit the degree of knowledge possessed by your opponent. Unusquisque mavult credere quam judicare [Every man prefers belief to the exercise...
In front of the law there is a doorkeeper. A man from the countryside comes up to the door and asks for entry. But the doorkeeper says he can't let him in to the law right now. The man thinks about this, and then he...
If a man lets this sink deep into his heart, and, when he looks upon the evils of others, of which there is a huge supply every day, remembers that they are free to come to him also, he will arm himself against them long...
Two boxes. Box A contains 100 balls: 50 red and 50 black. Box B also holds 100 balls, but you don’t know how many are red and how many black. If you reach into one of the boxes without looking and draw out a red...
In Greek mythology, Lycaon (/laɪˈkeɪɒn/; Attic Greek: Λυκάων, Lukáо̄n, Attic Greek: [ly.kǎː.ɔːn]) was a king of Arcadia who, in the most popular version of the myth, tested Zeus' omniscience by serving him the roasted flesh of Lycaon's own son Nyctimus, in order to see whether...
THE SIX MISTAKES OF MAN The illusion that personal gain is made up of crushing others. The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or cor- rected. Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences. Neglecting development and refinement of the...
There was one incident, however, to which his detractors would seem to have attached more importance than it was worth, but which must have been sufficiently disturbing to Schopenhauer--we refer to the Marquet affair. It appears on his returning home one day he found three...
“Richard, how can you hope to impress the world when everybody else works for their living and you run around all irresponsible from day to day in your crazy biplane, selling passenger rides?” He was testing me again. “There’s a question you are gonna get more...
This tough philosophy began in Ancient Greece, but it was in the Roman Empire that it flourished. Two important writers who helped to spread the Stoic teaching were Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC) and Lucius Annaeus Seneca (1 BC-AD 65). The brevity of life and...
And Mr. Keuner told the following story: One day, during the period of illegality, an agent entered the apartment of Mr. Eggers, a man who had learned to say no. The agent showed an official document which stated that any apartment in which he set foot...
