Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are:
Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, Overcoming Bias, or HPMoR.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
Geulincx, from his own annotations to his Ethics (1665):
...our actions are as it were a mirror of Reason and God's law. If they reflect Reason, and contain in themselves what Reason dictates, then they are virtuous and praiseworthy; but if they distort Reason's reflection in themselves, then they are vicious and blameworthy. This has no effect on Reason, or God's law, which are no more beautiful or more ugly for it. Likewise, a thing represented in a mirror remains the same whether the mirror is true and faithfully represents it, or whether it is false and twists and distorts the likeness of the thing. The mirror does not distort the likeness of the thing reflected in the thing itself, but in itself - that is, in the mirror itself. Hence, corruption and ugliness belong with the mirror itself, not with the thing reflected. Similarly, we are also said to break God's law, to trample on it, to pervert it, and so on, but this takes place in ourselves, not in the law itself, so that the whole of the ugliness remains in ourselves, and nothing of it belongs with the law itself.
Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are: