windy

“There is a point in the history of society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“But supposing the world has become “filled up”, so to speak, with liberal democracies, such as there exist no tyranny and oppression worthy of the name against which to struggle? Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity, and against democracy.”
― Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man

“If I told you that 'Abraham Lincoln, the first president of Canada, invented the automobile,' you would think critically about this without any prompting because it would conflict with knowledge you hold in long-term memory. So, if we want to enhance critical thinking, building knowledge in long-term memory may be our best bet.”
― Greg Ashman, A Little Guide for Teachers: Cognitive Load Theory

“Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle that they are laboring to dethrone: but if they argue without reason (which, in order to be consistent with themselves they must do), they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark