1

Plato: “Now beauty shone bright among the visions, and in this world below we apprehend it through the clearest of our senses, clear and resplendent. For sight is the keenest of the physical senses, though wisdom is not seen by it — how passionate would be our desire for it, if such a clear image of wisdom were granted as would come through sight — and the same is true of the other beloved objects; but beauty alone has this privilege, to be most clearly seen and most lovely of them all.”

2

Edmund Burke: “Curiosity … quickly runs over the greatest part of its objects, and soon exhausts the variety which is commonly to be met with in nature. … The occurrences of life, by the time we come to know it a little, would be incapable of affecting the mind with any other sensations than those of loathing and weariness [if we did not develop] other passions besides curiosity in ourselves.”

3

Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia): “One of the core things [in Ayn Rand’s work] is the virtue of independence … [A character] is given a choice … to compromise his integrity or to essentially go out of business. And he [takes] a job working in a quarry. And for me that model has a lot of resonance. What I’m doing and the way I’m doing it is more important to me than any amount of money.”

4

Friedrich Nietzsche: “I claimed that art, rather than ethics, constituted the essential metaphysical activity of man … I made several suggestive statements to the effect that existence could be justified only in esthetic terms.”

5

Huang Po (Zen Master): “Do not permit the events of your daily lives to bind you, but never withdraw yourselves from them. Only by acting thus can you earn the title of ‘A Liberated One’.”

6

Karl Popper: “I appeal to the philosophers of all countries to unite and never again mention Heidegger or talk to another philosopher who defends Heidegger. This man was a devil. I mean, he behaved like a devil … and he has a devilish influence on Germany.”

7

Parmenides: “For never shall this be proved: that things that are not are; but hold back your thought from this way of enquiry, nor let custom, born of much experience, force you to let wander along this road your aimless eye, your echoing ear or your tongue; but do judge by reason that ONE way only is left to be spoken of, that IT IS; and on this way are full many signs that WHAT IS is uncreated and imperishable; entire, immovable and without end. It was not in the past, nor shall it be in the future, since it is now, all at once, ONE.”

8

Kant: “There was a time when I … despised the mob, which knows nothing. [But] I learned to honor men, and would consider myself much less useful than common laborers if I did not believe that [my work] could give all [men] a value.”