Smarter than I: II

This carnival is living up to its name. The posts received blew me away so much that any pithy summaries I could come up with were utterly inadequate to the task at hand. Some of these were gut-bustingly funny; some incredibly thought-provoking; and some just unbelievably beautiful. It's amazing the depth and the breadth of talented prose on the net. One thing I know is that there are many people smarter than I both past and present. So here are the latter in terms of the former.

Kant: We call sublime what is absolutely large ...That is sublime in comparison with which everything else is small. (popular demand)

Sun-Tzu: To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself. (from Mark at Pseudo-Polymath)

Freud: But this uncertainty disappears in the course of Hoffmann's story, and we perceive that he intends to make us, too, look through the demon optician's spectacles or spy-glass - perhaps, indeed, that the author in his very own person once peered through such an instrument. (from Bora at SciencePolitics) [Ed: this post is long, but so very worth it]

Bertrand Russell: This enlargement of Self is not obtained when, taking the Self as it is, we try to show that the world is so similar to this Self that knowledge of it is possible without any admission of what seems alien. The desire to prove this is a form of self-assertion and, like all self-assertion, it is an obstacle to the growth of Self. (check out A. Rickey's comment, too) (from Sanctimonious Hypocrite)

Kant (again): Which restriction is an obstacle to enlightenment, and which is not an obstacle but a promoter of it? I answer: The public use of one's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men. (from Jim at Decorabilia)

Roland Barthes: If one wishes to connect a mythical schema to a general history, it is the reader of myths himself who must reveal their essential funtion. How does he receive this particular myth today? (scroll down to Septimus's comment) (from Jim at Decorabilia)

Ralph Waldo Emerson: There is properly no history; only biography. (from Mark at Pseudo-Polymath)

Paul Ricoeur: To bring about the economy of the gift in a modern context. Should this not be the challenge and joy especially for those who know about the strange economy of God and have received the economy of salvation? (from Rana at Frogs and Ravens)

Found randomly on the web cuz I know nil about science: The new science of virus molecular systematics is shedding a great deal of light on the distant relationships of, and in some cases on the presumed origins of many important groups of viruses. (from PZ Meyers at Pharyngula)

Alexander Pope: Satire or sense, alas! Can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? (from Brian Thompson)

Juvenal (who didn't even have the benefit of our asinine headlines): It is difficult not to write satire. (from Ferdinand at Conservative Cat)

Last & late but not least:

Homer Simpson: Mmmmm......sacrilicious...... (from John of Locusts and Honey)