What moralist can deny that well-bred and vicious people are much more agreeable than their virtuous counterparts? Having crimes to atone for, they provisionally solicit indulgence by showing leniency toward the defects of their judges. Thus they pass for excellent folk.
After the fall of communism in Poland, we had a post-communist as president for two terms: Aleksander Kwasniewski. He was very good. He brought Poland into NATO and the European Union. The call to finally clean house is a propaganda tool of the right, which tolerates the leftists who it condemns. Kaczynski appointed a judge to the position of deputy justice minister who had once sentenced current President Bronislaw Komorowski to a prison term.
And it did for one wild moment cross my mind that, perhaps, those might not be the very best judges of the relation of religion to happiness who, by their own account, had neither one nor the other.
The noble type of man feels himself to be the determiner of values, he does not need to be approved of, he judges 'what harms me is harmful in itself', he knows himself to be that which in general accords honour to things, he creates values.
The visible universe is subject to quantification, and is so by necessity. … Between you and me only reason will be the judge … since you proceed according to the rational method, so shall I. … I will also give reason and take it. … This generation has an innate vice. It can’t accept anything that has been discovered by a contemporary!
There is another way of disqualifying the metaphysicians.... Judge them by their works. What have they done for mankind beyond the spinning of airy fancies and the mistaking of their own shadows for gods?
Most men unconsciously judge the world from themselves, and it will be very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples.