Doktrin

Eric Hoffer

Eric Hoffer

En dosis sund fornuft fra Eric Hoffer, amerikansk havnearbejder og selvlært filosof. Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) er nok mest kendt for bogen “The True Believer – On The Nature of Mass Movements”, hvori han dissekerer psykologien bag massebevægelser.

  • “Spiritual stagnation ensues when man’s environment becomes unpredictable or when his inner life is made wholly predictable.”
  • “We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.”
  • “Whoever originated the cliche that money is the root of all evil knew hardly anything about the nature of evil and very little about human beings.”
  • “The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large portion of mankind.”
  • “Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in still others it is a holy cause. There are of course times when hard cash will buy souls, and the remarkable thing is that such times are marked by civility, tolerance, and the smooth working of everyday life.”
  • “We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to attain excellence. To discover what a man truly craves but knows he cannot have we must find the field in which he advocates absolute equality. By this test Communists are frustrated Capitalists.”

John Adams, 2. President of the US of AFlere inspirerende citater:

  • Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
  • Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion… in private self-defense.
  • Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.
  • In politics the middle way is none at all. – John Adams

  • Karen Blixen

    “Mon der vel nogensinde har været noget som dette Tredie Rige? Af de  foreteelser, som jeg i mit liv personlig har kendt til, er den, der  kommer det nærmest, Islam, den muhamedanske verden og  verdensanskuelse. Ordet Islam betyder hengivelse, det er vel det  samme, som Det Tredie Rige udtrykker  i sin håndoprækning: Din i  liv og død. Den muhamedanske verdensanskuelse har som nazismen en uhyre selvfølelse: Den rettro står over alle vantro, een rettroende sjæl  er mere værd end hele verdens guld. Den er i sit væsen  klasseudslettende som Det Tredie Rige, den ene muhamedaner er, om   han er vandbærer eller emir, ligeså god som den anden. Den har et  vældigt sammenhold og stor hjælpsomhed de troende imellem – 10 % af  din formue skal du give til de trængende af Islam, og det er ikke almisse, men en gæld du betaler.
    I sine ritualer har Islam lighed med Det Tredie Rige: De rettroende  får ikke tid til at blive fremmede for hinanden. Nogle ting i “Min  kamp” ligner kapitler i koranen.” Karen Blixen (forfatter, “Breve fra et land i krig”, 1948)

Camus

  • Den ondskab, der findes i verden, stammer næsten altid fra uvidenhed, og den gode vilje kan afstedkomme lige så megen fortræd som den onde, dersom den ikke ved bedre besked. Menneskene er snarere gode end slette, og i virkeligheden er det slet ikke der, spørgsmålet ligger. Men de er mere eller mindre uvidende, og her er det, at man kan skelne mellem dyd og last, idet den mest fortvivlende last er den uvidenhed, der tror at vide alt, og som tager sig ret til at dræbe.  Albert Camus
  • “Sidder på en bombe i et S-tog
    & drømmer mig tilbage til dengang i de
    ligeglade tressere hvor blomster var symboler
    på de samme ting som bomber er idag” C.V. Jørgensen

Kierkegaard

  • Det hendte paa et Theater, at der gik Ild i Coulisserne. Bajads kom for at underrette Publicum derom. Man troede, det var en Vittighed og applauderede; han gjentog det; man jublede endnu mere. Saaledes tænker jeg, at Verden vil gaae til Grunde under almindelig Jubel af vittige Hoveder, der troer, at det er en Witz.
  • Jeg taler helst med Børn; thi om dem tør man dog haabe, at de kan blive Fornuft-Væsener; men de, der er blevne det! Herre Jemini!
  • Ak, medens den speculerende velbaarne Hr. Professor forklarer hele Tilværelsen, har han i Distraction glemt, hvad han selv hedder: at han er et Menneske, et slet og ret Menneske, ikke en phantastisk 3/8 af en §.
  • Dersom der ingen evig bevidsthed var i et menneske, dersom der til grund for alt kun lå en vildt gærende magt, der vridende sig i dunkle lidenskaber frembragte alt, hvad der var stort og hvad der var ubetydeligt, dersom en bundløs tomhed, aldrig mættet, skjulte sig under alt, hvad var da livet andet end fortvivlelse?
    Dersom det forholdt sig således, dersom der intet helligt bånd var, der sammenknyttede menneskeheden, dersom den ene slægt stod op efter den anden som løvet i skoven, dersom den ene slægt afløste den anden som fuglesangen i skoven, dersom slægten gik gennem verden, som skibet går gennem havet, som vejret gennem ørkenen, en tankeløs og ufrugtbar gerning, derom en evig glemsel altid hungrig lurede på sit bytte, og der var ingen magt stærk nok til at frarive den det – hvor var da livet tomt og trøstesløst. – Søren Kierkegaard
  • »Det kan godt være Newton var et æsel [an ass, AL], men teorien om tyngdekraften fungerer stadig« – Gavin A. Schmidt
  • All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.t-jefferson2-icon.jpg
  • A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
  • A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.
  • The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but the newspapers.
  • Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
  • Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
  • Information is the currency of democracy. – Thomas Jefferson
  • portrait_de_dante.jpgThe darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
  • He listens well who takes notes.
  • There is no greater sorrow
    Than to be mindful of the happy time
    In misery.
  • “Consider your origins; you were not meant to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge […] Follow your own star.”
  • If the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought. – Dante Alighieri
  • churchill_poster.jpg
  • “The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.” (Det kan jo ikke være Holland og Geert Wilders, Churchill her har i tankerne, men…)
  • A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
  • An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
  • As the horn is to the rhinoceros and the stinger is to the wasp, so the Mohammedan faith is to the Arabs.
  • How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
    Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.
  • One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.
  • Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
  • I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
  • The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.
  • You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
  • Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. – Sir Winston S. Churchill
  • Galileos are still being interrogated in the disastrous courts of ignorance
    Young Galileos are crying
    Oh You! Darkness lovers:
    We will not be frightened of burns and fires
    We are the everlasting flames of history – Sirus Tabristani, an Iranian Poet

  • Lars Hedegaard

    Fræk og frygtløs religionskritik var for ikke så længe siden venstrefløjens specialitet. I dag er den et bevis på, at man er halvfascist.

  • Indvandringens sande omkostninger er vores bedst bevarede statshemmelighed. Det er langt fra nok at se på indvandrernes undergennemsnitlige deltagelse på arbejdsmarkedet og deres overforbrug af velfærdsydelser. Lars Hedegaard