DR. MARDY'S QUOTES OF THE WEEK -- July 18 – 24, 2010
A WEEKLY CELEBRATION OF GREAT QUOTES IN HISTORY
(AND THE HISTORY BEHIND THE QUOTES)
THIS WEEK'S PUZZLER:
On July 22, 1967, this man died at age 89 in Flat Rock, North Carolina.
Born in 1878 in Galesburg, Illinois, he left school at age 13 and tried his hand at a wide variety of jobs before volunteering to fight in the Spanish-American War. After the war, he attended college for two years before taking a job as a journalist (and writing poetry on the side). His early writing efforts never made much of a splash, but he made a dramatic entrance on the literary scene in 1914 when a number of his poems (including his now-famous "Chicago" poem) were published in "Poetry"
magazine Now considered one of America's greatest poets, he also wrote
folk songs, novels, children's stories, and biographies. In his first book, "Reckless Ecstasy," printed privately in 1904, he wrote:
"There are some people who can receive a truth by no other way
than to have their understanding shocked and insulted."
Who is this man? (Answer below)
THIS WEEK'S THEME FOR CHIEF PHILOSOPHICAL OFFICERS:
"Handling the Truth--or Not"
The quotation in this week's Puzzler speaks to a problem that almost all people have experienced at some point in their lives: they're confronted with a truth about themselves that they're unable to accept. It's an example of what might be called the You-Can't-Handle-The-Truth theme, after that classic line from Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men" (1992).
The phenomenon also shows up in another one of my favorite quotations:
"The truth shall set you free, but first it shall make you mad."
(this is the PG version; I'll leave the R-rated one to your imagination)
While almost all people say they're interested in the truth, the plain fact is that, when it comes to certain topics, many people are not. Think about how this might be true in your life right now. I’m sure you can think of at least a couple of people who are steadfast in their unwillingness to face an ugly truth or unflattering reality about themselves. After you've thought about how this might be true for some other people, turn it around and apply it to yourself. Is it possible that there are also people in your life who believe that you are someone who is unwilling to see or accept an unpleasant truth about yourself?
When people are in a state of denial, how can they be brought to the truth? The simple answer is, "With great difficulty." It's something that psychologists, philosophers, writers, and others have thought deeply about over the centuries--and this week, we feature a dozen of their most memorable observations on the subject.
"Every therapeutic cure, and still more,
any awkward attempt to show the patient the truth,
tears him from the cradle of his freedom from responsibility
and must therefore reckon with the most vehement resistance."
Alfred Adler
"The truth that makes men free is for the most part
the truth which men prefer not to hear."
Herbert Agar
"Nothing is so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity
as the application of a rough truth!"
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
"Truth, like light, blinds.
Falsehood, on the contrary,
is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object."
Albert Camus
"Upon my word, I think the truth
is the hardest missile one can be pelted with."
George Eliot
"God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.
Take which you please; you can never have both."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"There are two ways to be fooled:
One is to believe what isn't so;
the other is to refuse to believe what is so."
Soren Kierkegaard
"Many people today don't want honest answers
insofar as honest means unpleasant or disturbing.
They want a soft answer that turneth away anxiety."
Louis Kronenberger
"When others asked the truth of me,
I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted,
but an illusion they could bear to live with."
Anais Nin
"To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle."
George Orwell
"Truth is a rough, honest, helter-skelter terrier
that none like to see brought into their living rooms."
Ouida
"Truths and roses have thorns about them."
Henry David Thoreau
THIS WEEK IN HISTORY:
On July 20, 1945, Paul Valery died at age 73 in Paris (several days after his death, he was given a full state funeral). When he was in his twenties, Valery was a full-time civil servant and part-time writer.
Urged by Andre Gide to publish his works, he soon developed a reputation as a gifted playwright, poet, and essayist. For most of his life, he arose at dawn, meditated for several hours, and then recorded his thoughts in his "Notebooks" (in French, titled "Cahiers"). The entries in his private journals revealed a man of great intellectual breadth as well as exceptional aphoristic skill. Elected to the French Academy in 1925, he became one of his country's most respected intellectuals. He was also the author of one of the best-known observations of the 20th century:
"The trouble with our times is that
the future is not what it used to be."
Valery was a kind of intellectual acrobat who loved to let his mind play with ideas as he delved into the many subjects that caught his fancy.
Along the way, he penned many observations that won the admiration of word and language lovers:
"Love is being stupid together."
"At times I think and at times I am."
"A poem is never finished, only abandoned."
"A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator."
"The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up."
"Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder."
"A man's true secrets are more secret to himself
than they are to others."
"Long years must pass before
the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh."
"The purpose of psychology is to give us
a completely different idea of the things we know best."
"Books have the same enemies as people:
fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content."
"A man who is 'of sound mind' is one who
keeps the inner madman under lock and key."
"Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part
in affairs which properly concern them."
"God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone,
gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly."
"Man's great misfortune is that he has no organ,
no kind of eyelid or brake, to mask or block a thought,
or all thought, when he wants to."
PUZZLER ANSWER: Carl Sandburg
DR. MARDY'S QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
"The truth is ugly only when we prefer to believe a beauty of a lie."
Until next week,
Dr. Mardy Grothe
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