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It is the considered opinion of most members of our rational élites that, in any given difference of opinion with reality, reality is wrong.

John Ralston Saul

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John Ralston Saul
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: June 19
Author
Columnist
Investment Banker
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
Politician
Writer
Ottawa (Ontario)
John Ralston Saul
John Saul
Wrong
Given
Reality
Rational
Considered
Members
Difference
Differences
Opinion

More quotes by John Ralston Saul

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We have more than two options. A critique of reason does not have to be a call for the return of superstition and arbitrary power. Our problems do not lie with reason itself but with our obsessive treatment of reason as an absolute value. Certainly it is one of our qualities, but it functions positively only when balanced and limited by the others.
John Ralston Saul
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McDonald's is the ultimate symbol of passive conformity.
John Ralston Saul
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Pessimism: A valuable protection against quackery.
John Ralston Saul
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Money is not real. It is a conscious agreement on measuring value.
John Ralston Saul
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People cannot do what they cannot think, and they cannot think what they cannot say.
John Ralston Saul
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Dictionary: Opinion presented as truth in alphabetical order.
John Ralston Saul
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Canada is either an idea or it does not exist. It is either an intellectual undertaking or it is little more than a resource-rich vacuum lying in the buffer zone just north of a great empire.
John Ralston Saul
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Humanism: an exaltation of freedom, but one limited by our need to exercise it as an integral part of nature and society.
John Ralston Saul
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Capitalism was reasonably content under Hitler, happy under Mussolini, very happy under Franco and delirious under General Pinochet.
John Ralston Saul
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Freedom - an occupied space which must be reoccupied every day.
John Ralston Saul
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There is something silly about grown men and women striving to reduce their vision of themselves and of civilization to bean counting.
John Ralston Saul
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An individual who stands out, or disagrees or takes risks is a danger to such systems and is effortlessly and, unconsciously sidelined.
John Ralston Saul
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The faithful witness, like...Socrates, Voltaire, and Swift and Christ himself, is at his best when he is questioning and clarifying and avoiding the specialists obsession with solution. He betrays society when he is silent...He is true to himself and to people when his clarity causes disquiet.
John Ralston Saul
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The void in our society has been produced by the absence of values... we have no widespread belief in the value of participation. The rational system has made us fear standing out in any serious way.
John Ralston Saul
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United States:. A nation given either to unjustified over-enthusiasms or infantile furies.
John Ralston Saul
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In all earlier civilizations, it should be remembered, commerce was treated as a narrow activity and by no means the senior sector in society.
John Ralston Saul
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If economists were doctors, they would today be mired in malpractice suits.
John Ralston Saul
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Faith: The opposite of dogmatism.
John Ralston Saul
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Educating the masses was intended only to improve the relationship between the top and the bottom of society. Not for changing the nature of the relationship.
John Ralston Saul
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Freud, Sigmund: A man so dissatisfied with his own mother and father that he devoted his life to convincing everyone who would listen — or better still, talk — that their parents were just as bad.
John Ralston Saul