Man associates ideas not according to logic or verifiable exactitude, but according to his pleasure and interests. It is for this reason that most truths are nothing but prejudices.
Interpretation
Human perception of truth is influenced by personal biases rather than objective reasoning.
This quote by Remy De Gourmont highlights the idea that individuals often form associations between ideas based on their subjective preferences and interests, rather than through logical reasoning or factual accuracy. As a result, many beliefs we hold to be true may merely reflect our biases or societal prejudices, rather than an objective understanding of reality.
In practice
In a discussion about societal norms, one might use this quote to illustrate how personal biases shape collective beliefs.
Science is the only truth and it is the great lie. It knows nothing, and people think it knows everything. It is misrepresented. People think that science is electricity, automobilism, and dirigible balloons. It is something very different. It is life devouring itself. It is the sensibility transformed into intelligence. It is the need to know stifling the need to live. It is the genius of knowledge vivisecting the vital genius.
Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.
All this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us the by senses and experience.
It is dangerous to be an American Negro male. America has never wanted its Negroes to be men, and does not, generally, treat them as men. It treats them as mascots, pets, or things.
Life is filled with abstractions, and the only way to make heads or tails of it is going through intuition.
Give me a different set of mothers and I will give you a different world
Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world. Our hearing extends to a small distance. Our sight is impeded by intervening bodies and shadows. To know each other we must reach beyond the sphere of our sense perceptions. We must transmit our intelligence, travel, transport the materials and transfer the energies necessary for our existence.
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