6th June 2017 vs 6th June 1944

[Burney]

I have an issue with quotations as proof of argument, anyway. Just because some famous **** said it, doesn't mean I have to believe it.

Well, despite the Keats heuristic, a well-turned phrase or a sonorous rhyme are usually poor guides to reason. Nonetheless, we do fall for them as a species.

[Sir C]

Well, despite the Keats heuristic, a well-turned phrase or a sonorous rhyme are usually poor guides to reason. Nonetheless, we do fall for them as a species.

"I fúcking don't." Me, just now.

[Burney]

"I fúcking don't." Me, just now.

Really? Are you telling me the hairs on the back of your neck don't go up when you read this - let alone hear it?

What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over ... the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

[Sir C]

Really? Are you telling me the hairs on the back of your neck don't go up when you read this? Let alone hear it.

It's irrelevant whether it's true or not, though. It's beautifully written, which makes it a thing of beauty.

I'm referring to those quotations used to prove an argument. "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" is patently bóllocks, but because some burke said it, it's used as a winning argument.

[Burney]

It's irrelevant whether it's true or not, though. It's beautifully written, which makes it a thing of beauty.

I'm referring to those quotations used to prove an argument. "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" is patently bóllocks, but because some burke said it, it's used as a winning argument.

I agree, but that works because we are still swayed by good words more than we are by facts. In that sense rhetoric is better than reason. After all, if I'm going to go out and resist Johnny Hun to the utmost, it'll be Churchill's words that stir me to do so rather than a highly accurate hour-long Powerpoint demonstration detailing every reason why it's necessary for me to do so.