Happy Thursday ADD Irregulars, Refugees & Phamily! Good Morning Digital Neighbors, Dawn Patrol & Early Birds, Later Dayers & Day Walkers, Conversants, Lurkers & Visitors to the Local communities I appreciate - all of you Rubin Reporters, Phetasy Pham and Padre Neighbors that make my visits to Locals enjoyable. Taking a small break from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows to visits some quote on argument.
Many contemporaries probably think that to argue is to be an ass. Certainly the current manifestation of argumentation as decayed into imputing the worst of intentions and attributes to those with whom you agree. Our current political climate has contaminated so much. One should not ignore politics unless you want to wake up one day with your live changed and your freedom gone. Conversely, making politics your active substitute for other passions or religious experiences is disastrous. Informed, aware, engaged but not singularly obsessed.
My mother's family loved arguing, often about the most ridiculous stuff. My father's family was the opposite. How can a people so similar in culture, the English and the Irish, be so different in attitude toward arguing? Is it a difference between a Germanic or Celtic temperament? Perhaps it was just within my extended families, but all of us kids knew the difference between visiting the Lavin side of family and the Miller side of the family.
90% the arguments ended in laughter and the agree to disagree about the subject since many were just expressing uninformed opinions. The 10% that turned ugly was always the most immediate and personal, family issues and often the arguing over who said what. Momma Peg would tell my father "We get it off our chest when we argue." My father's retort: "You bring it back up for the next 20 years." Both were right. 😁 Anyways on to the quotes my friends! 5 for Thursday! I guess I should spread it out over a few days, but I am sure I will have something else to ramble about tomorrow. 🌞
He who knows only his side of the case, knows little of that. - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Hear one side and you will be in the dark. Hear both and all will be clear. -Chinese Proverb
Don't take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent took the right side.- Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom
People's minds are changed through observation and not through argument. -Will Rogers, Daily Telegrams, 16 March 1932
You cannot antagonize and influence people at the same time. - James Samuel Knox, The Science and Art of Selling
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
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XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
