We are like a judge confronted by a defendant who declines to answer, and we must determine the truth from the circumstantial evidence.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that understanding truths can be difficult, akin to judging a case without direct evidence.
Alfred Wegener's quote reflects the challenges faced when trying to ascertain the truth in situations where direct answers are not provided. Just as a judge must rely on circumstantial evidence to make informed decisions, we too must interpret the underlying clues and circumstances in our lives to uncover deeper truths.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about the nature of truth in philosophy classes.
Let us face a pluralistic world in which there are no universal churches, no single remedy for all diseases, no one way to teach or write or sing, no magic diet, no world poets, and no chosen races, but only the wretched and wonderfully diversified human race.
When you open up to the ultimate, immediately it pours into you. You are no longer an ordinary human being - you have transcended. Your insight has become the insight of the whole existence. Now you are no longer separate - you have found your roots.
Perhaps one reason we are fascinated by cats is because such a small animal can contain so much independence, dignity, and freedom of spirit. Unlike the dog, the cat's personality is never bet on a human's. He demands acceptance on his own terms.
The ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations.
Collectivism answers: The power of society is unlimited. Society may make any laws it wishes, and force them upon anyone in any manner it wishes.
The most serious dangers for American freedom and the American way of life do not come from without.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.