Compromise, while at times morally necessary or at least justifiable, is more often only the first permission for a person (or society) to begin a long downhill descent.
Dennis PragerRead
Our scientific age demands that we provide definitions, measurements, and statistics in order to be taken seriously. Yet most of the important things in life cannot be precisely defined or measured. Can we define or measure love, beauty, friendship, or decency, for example?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the limitations of science in defining the most meaningful aspects of life.
Dennis Prager's quote underscores the tension between the demands of a scientific worldview, which relies on definitions and measurements, and the understanding that many of life's most significant experiences—such as love, beauty, friendship, and decency—resist quantification. It suggests that while scientific rigor is valuable, it falls short in capturing the true essence of what it means to lead a rich and fulfilling life, urging us to appreciate the qualitative aspects of our existence that may be overlooked.
Themes
ScienceLoveBeautyFriendshipDecencyMeasurement
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace.
More from Dennis Prager
All quotes →If _x000D_ we continue to teach about tolerance and intolerance _x000D_ instead _x000D_ of good and evil, we will end up with tolerance of _x000D_ evil.
Dennis PragerRead
Compassion without wisdom is dangerous. It's what enables people to support the 'underdog,' even if the underdog is evil
Dennis PragerRead
If you equate happiness with success, you will never achieve the amount of success necessary to make you happy.
Dennis PragerRead
To posit the existence of a Creator requires only reason. To posit the existence of a good God requires faith.
Dennis PragerRead
Whatever one does for a living, three questions need to be confronted before it is too late: What really matters to me? What price do my spouse and kids pay for my career success? What price does my soul pay?
Dennis PragerRead
Similar quotes
Mostly, I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
Tom WaitsRead
Unlike the Tea Party, who see themselves as the customers of government, people in the Occupy Wall Street movement understand that we are the government. Stated most simply, we are trying to run a 21st-century society on a 13th-century economic operating system. It just doesn't work.
Douglas RushkoffRead
Meditation is not growth of the ego, it is death of the ego.
RajneeshRead
Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually say what one means.
Paul De ManRead
The freedom now desired by many is not freedom to do and dare but freedom from care and worry.
James Truslow AdamsRead
The generation of mankind is like the generation of leaves. The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the living tree burgeons with leaves again in the spring.
HomerRead