Realism Quotes

“Science, done right, works hard to respect absolutely no authority at all other than experience and empirical data. It never succeeds entirely, but it comes closer and has a better track record than any other method we apes have found for learning about the world around us.”
― Adam Becker, What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

“Religions have no merit for me
Any new religion we created
Brought upon countless discord
Amplifying Hatred and Animosity
The Crusades recurred
Human blood covered the earth, time and again in the name of faith
I am neither Muslim, nor Christian nor Jew
I follow the command of rationale
Rationale decrees that the ultimate pleasure is in coexistence
Religion on the other hand promises eternal reward by shedding the blood of unfaithful
Different thinkers are human too
Why does religion promote their killing?
I shall not shed the blood of fellow humans
This is the reason for my lack of faith
I have nothing to do with religion!”

As for you, my son:
“Follow your rationale to reach the pinnacle
Befriend all humans on earth
This is the ultimate faith.”
― Rumi

“The chain is only as strong as its weakest link, for if that fails the chain fails and the object that it has been holding up falls to the ground.”
― Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man

“As you evaluate my argument, resist that urge to come up with abstract hypothetical objections. Compare my examples of honor systems with actual alternatives, not idealized alternatives. Here's an analogy (one that hits a little too close to home for me). Imagine living in a house that badly needs repair. As you compare contractors, you should choose the one who can actually make the house better, not the one who can best imagine the blueprint of a perfect house. The same thinking applies to improving society.”
― Tamler Sommers, Why Honor Matters

“The deepest cuts are given by the people who are nearest to you. Why? Because they can.”
― Kapil Raj, Endurer: A Rape Story

“In every chain of reasoning, the evidence of the last conclusion can be no greater than that of the weakest link of the chain, whatever may be the strength of the rest.”
― Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man

“Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows naive realism to be false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.”
― Bertrand Russell, An Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth

“They cut the umbilical cord, give you a slap on the ass, and presto! you're out in the world, adrift, a ship without a rudder. You look at the stars and then you look at your navel. You grow eyes everywhere–in the armpits, between the lips, in the roots of your hair, on the soles of your feet. What is distant becomes near, what is near becomes distant. Inner-outer, a constant flux, a shedding of skins, a turning inside out. You drift around like that for years and years, until you find yourself in the dead center, and there you slowly rot, slowly crumble to pieces, get dispersed again. Only your name remains.”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

“The laws of physics, which govern the behaviour of atoms and the movements of the stars, govern also the conduct of rational beings.
And yet: Being is still enchanted for us;
in a hundred Places it remains a source - a play of pure Powers, which touches no one, who does not kneel and wonder.
Words still go softly forth towards the unsayable. And music, always new, from palpitating stones
Builds in useless space its godly home.
[Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, n]

This enchantment — revealed to us in the constant intimation of sacred things — belongs, not to the world of physical science, but to the Lebenswelt, which we ourselves construct through our collusive actions. The 'scientific realist' sees only a disenchanted world; and what he sees is real. But within reality we also make our home, and in doing so we provide the meaning that is lacking from the world of science.”
― Roger Scruton, Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation

“Neutrals are free, unaffected and disengaged. Their presence alone flatly cancels the logic of power across the board due to their existential uselessness to both powerful and powerless. I at times question any difference between ‘freedom’ and ‘uselessness’ and have never succeeded in finding a satisfying answer. I believe the world has become complicated by the neutrals who never exposed their neutrality. Their disguised intention and unfathomable identity have dramatized the world by having others fear their uncertainty. Neutrals stand outside of boundaries of good and bad. They are true strangers. And probably, they are the true resistants.”
― Bongha Lee, On Resistism

“One of the most neglected areas in the philosophy of perception concerns animal senses. It is surprising how many philosophers write abut perception in the apparent belief that humans are the only perceivers in the world. Human senses evolved through the same natural process as other animal senses, so there is no reason to regard human senses as special, or better than other animals senses.”
― Rochelle Forrester, Sense Perception and Reality: A Theory of Perceptual Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and the Observer Dependent Universe

“The Copenhagen Interpretation has long been the orthodox view of the quantum world and this is not surprising considering how weird the alternatives are. However realism has usually been assumed in the macro world, but given the modern research into animal senses, neurology, and cognitive psychology, realism must inevitably cease to be a serious explanation of the macro world. It seems quite obvious the macro world is sense dependent and the orthodox interpretation of the quantum world postulates a sense dependent world as well. This suggests the same rules can apply to both the macro and quantum worlds which eliminates the need for a dividing line between the two worlds.”
― Rochelle Forrester, Sense Perception and Reality: A Theory of Perceptual Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and the Observer Dependent Universe

“The darker the shadow, the brighter the light.”
― Mike Skinner, The Story of The Streets

“Our understanding of the universe is completely dependent upon the sensory apparatus available to us. Different animals have different sensory apparatus and so will have different but equally valid views of the universe. It is only by going outside our sensory apparatus, and studying how other sensory apparatus work, that we are able to get a better understanding of our own sensory apparatus.”
― Rochelle Forrester, Sense Perception and Reality: A Theory of Perceptual Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and the Observer Dependent Universe

“Each species has its own sensory world, which are often very different from each other's sensory world. There is some overlap between these worlds but there are many aspects of one species world which will be completely unknown to members of other species. The human view of the world is only one view and is no more valid than that of any other species.”
― Rochelle Forrester, Sense Perception and Reality: A Theory of Perceptual Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and the Observer Dependent Universe

“A significant part of the history of science has been the dethroning of human beings from being the centre of existence. Copernicus and Kepler showed the Earth was not the centre of the universe with everything orbiting the Earth. Darwin showed that the human being is just another animal, which has evolved like all other animals and shares ancestors with all other living species. It is time to dethrone the human view of the world and recognize that it is just another view of the world, no more real or true than the view of any other species.”
― Rochelle Forrester, Sense Perception and Reality: A Theory of Perceptual Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and the Observer Dependent Universe

“Our senses have evolved over millions of years in order to help us to survive. They give us information as to whether food is safe to eat, where potential prey may be and whether potential predators are around. They are designed to give us information relevant to our survival. Information not relevant to our survival, will not normally be available to us. Our senses are not designed to give us an accurate objective view of the world. They require a certain amount of energy to operate and human survival requires that energy is not wasted in providing us with information not relevant to our continued survival as a species. It is hardly surprising our senses do not give an accurate or objective view of the world. They are simply not intended for that purpose.”
― Rochelle Forrester, Sense Perception and Reality: A Theory of Perceptual Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and the Observer Dependent Universe

“The chain is only as strong as its weakest
link, for if that fails the chain fails and the object that it has been holding up falls to the ground.”
― Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man

“After all, humans – especially adult ones – want to believe the most mundane truths possible. They need to, in order to stop their world-views, and their sanity, from capsizing and plunging them into the vast ocean of the incomprehensible.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“For innocence lost
The same is the cost
The ride of your life
But you can never get off”
― Oliver Oyanadel, Little Arson Annie: Short Stories

“On the battlefield there is no distinction between royalty, nobility, and commons.”
― Bongha Lee, On Resistism

“A farmer can toil harder when a respite is promised at the end of the day and a feat at the end of the year. In the same manner, a human can live ferociously because death is promised at the end. “Teacher, what do you mean by the feat and rest? What is the relationship between?” The teacher answers, “forgetfulness, of every labor and sweats, and of himself in that condition.” Winter becomes bearable by the presence of forthcoming greens, marriage by children, letters by knowledge, urban by nature and canticle by beauty.”
― Bongha Lee, On Resistism

“Imagination is the weapon to fight off an impossibility.”
― Bongha Lee, On Resistism

“Two most pursuable things in life beyond happiness are beauty and virtue.”
― Bongha Lee, On Resistism

“All men are born great but die on the way. But a virtuous never dies but once.”
― Bongha Lee, On Resistism

“I am deeply convinced that perfection lies in excess of thoughts and excess of problems. These will devour me and break me down into indivisible particles. And in the belly of a monster where I am laid in the narrowest binary of doing or not-doing, being or not-being, I let my instinct to find the perfect answer.”
― Bongha Lee, On Resistism

“But the main source of the naturalistic outlook is the political experience of the generation of 1848: the failure of the revolution, the suppression of the June insurrection and the seizure of power by Louis Napoleon. The disappointment of the democrats and the general disillusionment caused by these events finds its perfect expression in the philosophy of the objective, realistic, strictly empirical natural sciences. After the failure of all ideals, of all Utopias, the tendency is now to keep to the facts, to nothing but the facts. The political origins of naturalism explain in particular its anti-romantic and ethical features: the refusal to escape from reality and the demand for absolute honesty in the description of facts; the striving for impersonality and impassibility as the guarantees of objectivity and social solidarity; activism as the attitude intent not only on knowing and describing but on altering reality; the modernism which keeps to the present as the sole subject-of consequence; and, finally, its popular trend both in the choice of subject and in the choice of public.”
― Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art: Volume 4: Naturalism, Impressionism, The Film Age

“The comments are sharp enough to pierce a man’s bladder and make him piss all over the floor. The elders could not get past the corners of the painting, never mind its window. The pang of words sliced my father into an exposed shell. He wept uncontrollably and quickly ushered them out. His hope was dangling in front of me, as if it would fall like a teardrop unattended. I too cried that day in confusion. If my father loses hope then what is left of me?”
― Xola Stemele, Stories about the other side: Anthology

“You wanted truths, here are some! Strong people don’t have to go around and remind themselves they are strong everyday. If you are really independent, nothing hurtful anyone says, will ever bother you. You don’t have to write about it. And if you are really brave, you never have to let go, you would’ve learned or known to win in those situations already. So let’s stop the Game of Truths for now until you, me and all of us are really ready!”
― Ayana Ghosh

“NBC would broadcast these public-service announcements. The Cosby kids would say things like, "Don't do drugs, because you've got a lot to live for." And I used to think, Well, okay--it's easy to say that, but some people are sitting at home and aren't from a rich family and might have no future. And here's a kid actor making shitloads of money, and he's telling everyone they have a lot to live for? It's hypocrisy on the grandest scale. Seeing something like that was always a motivation for me to create something more realistic.

That was one of the things I dealt with in the "I'm with the Band" episode [of Freaks and Geeks], where Nick auditions to become a drummer. Lindsay tells Nick, "You've got to follow your dreams! You can be anything you want to be!"

When I wrote that episode, it was my way of saying, "Actually, no. That's nonsense. You might have that attitude, but that's not the way the world works.”
― Paul Feig