The Hierarchy of Disagreement by Paul Graham
“Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.”
“Dear Sir: Regarding your article ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ I am. Yours truly,”
“People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; it is merely that the novel is more true than they are.”
“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
“The word “good” has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.”
“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”
“The Bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.”
“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
“There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.”
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”
“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”
“Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.”
Grace and peace, Alan
