appassionato , to bookstodon group
@appassionato@mastodon.social avatar

Half-Truths: What's Right (And What's Wrong) With the Clichés You and I Live By Montague Brown, 2003

Presented here in an easy-to-read format are the common understandings of each saying, plus the additional insights you need to transform each from a dangerous cliché into a living truth that will improve your understanding and effectiveness in our world.

@bookstodon


What's right (and what's wrong) in the clichés you and I live by. Today we call them "sound bites," but pithy phrases that capture in a few words the wisdom of the world are far older than that modern term. In fact, many are so old they've become part of our cultural vocabulary: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it. " "Talk is cheap." "It doesn't matter what you believe, so long as you're sincere." "Love is blind." "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." As a kind of wisdom in shorthand, these phrases speak truth won from generations of experience (and we know from our mothers that "experience is the best teacher"). These sayings survive because they work; which is why, in good times and bad, we use them to guide our actions and even to resolve intractable disputes ("Hey, let's just agree to disagree.") The problem is that most of them are not really true; they're half-true. And when we rely on them uncritically (as we often do) they lead us out of one difficulty right smack into another. That's why philosopher Montague Brown, author of The One-Minute Philosopher, has here taken up the task of considering over 80 of these popular sayings, plucking from each the wisdom they contain while showing just where they steer us wrong. But this book is more than a look at individual aphorisms; taken as a whole, it's a delightful mini-course in philosophy.
ALT
  • Reply
    • appassionato , to bookstodon group
    @appassionato@mastodon.social avatar

    The Aphorisms of Franz Kafka 2022, edited by Reiner Stach

    In 1917 and 1918, Franz Kafka wrote a set of more than 100 aphorisms, known as the Zürau aphorisms, after the Bohemian village in which he composed them. Among the most mysterious of Kafka's writings, they explore philosophical questions about truth, good and evil, and the spiritual and sensory world.

    @bookstodon


    This is the first annotated, bilingual volume of these extraordinary writings, which provide great insight into Kafka's mind. Edited, introduced, and with commentaries by preeminent Kafka biographer and authority Reiner Stach, and freshly translated by Shelley Frisch, this beautiful volume presents each aphorism on its own page in English and the original German, with accessible and enlightening notes on facing pages.
    ALT
  • Reply
  • Expand (1)
  • Collapse (1)
    • appassionato OP ,
    @appassionato@mastodon.social avatar

    @bookstodon

    "Der wahre Weg geht über ein Seil, das nicht in der Höhe gespannt ist, sondern knapp über dem Boden. Es scheint mehr bestimmt stolpern zu machen, als begangen zu werden."

    "The true path leads along a rope stretched, not high in the air, but barely above the ground. It seems designed more for stumbling than for walking along it."


  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • kbinchat
  • All magazines
    •