9 paradoxical truths from 9 brilliant thinkers

Nietzsche: What men in groups believe is worthless because they're protected by sheer numbers. Truth likes lone wolves.

Chesterton: You need to hate the world enough to change it, but love it enough to consider it worth changing. Action is the offspring of dark pessimism and frenzied optimism.

Napoleon: Logic will lose you wars because sometimes the moment demands imaginative maneuvers that work because they don't make sense

Camile Paglia: Liberalism defines government as tyrant father but demands it behave as nurturant mother. This is at the root of many contemporary political dysfunctionalities.

Chateaubriand: Beauty is useless if you care for efficiency, but shockingly useful if you care for lovability. Yes, beauty is a wasteful luxury but ultimately the only thing people will die for, and make pilgrimages to.

John Morley: Great writing dances at the border of mysterious and obvious. Too mysterious and you're inaccessible, too obvious and you're boring.

La Rochefoucauld: Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire. Time will kill everything shallow, and deepen everything real.

Julius Evola: Democracy has hurt the demos (people) the most by disempowering their natural superiors. South Korea, Singapore, and China all went from the third world to the first without representative democracies. Accountable leaders with a lot of leeway and power can do great.

John Fowles: High IQ is a terrifying gift. The ability to predict the consequences of any action means your will gets lost in a labyrinth of hypotheses. Rule 1: Do not lose the will.

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