Jane Jacobs Quotes

As soon as you look at the world through an ideology, you are finished. No reality fits ideology.

Even if you don't believe in God, you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.

Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing.

I write about everything, but I just - how faith filters through all that and colors your opinion of other people and life and all that.

There's a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.

We don't live in the world of reality, we live in the world of how we perceive reality.

Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

My political beliefs are my moral, quasi-religious framework.

Nor is it that truly a belief at all which has not some influence upon the actions of him who holds it.

The death of dogma is the birth of morality.

Wherever there is a conscious mind, there is a point of view.

I do my research, and if I'm supporting something, then it's because it aligns with me morally and ethically.

Sometimes we forge our own principles and sometimes we accept others' principles, or holistic packages of principles, such as religion and legal systems. While it isn't necessarily a bad thing to use others' principles - it's difficult to come up with your own, and often much wisdom has gone into those already created - adopting pre-packaged principles without much thought exposes you to the risk of inconsistency with your true values.

Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them.

One of the many disservices done to young people by our schools and colleges is giving them the puffed up notion that they are in a position to pass sweeping judgments on a world that they have barely begun to experience.

‎People have presuppositions... By 'presuppositions' we mean the basic way that an individual looks at life- his worldview. The grid through which he sees the world. Presuppositions rest upon that which a person considers to be the truth of what exists. A person's presuppositions provide the basis for their values- and therefore the basis for their decisions.

An ethic isn't a fact you can look up. It's a way of thinking.

Your children will go to public school and they will be trained for somewhere around 15,000 hours in ungodly secular thought. And then they'll go to Sunday school and they'll color a picture of Noah's ark. And you think that's going to stand against the lies that they are being told?

The ideas by which people . . . interpret their existence and in measure guide their behavior, were not forged in a world of wealth.

I can see the use and value of religion, just as I can see the use of mud wrestling, yoga, astronomy and sadomasochism. but I reject the idea that you can't be a deep human being without it or any of them.

What an ideology is is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality. Everyone has one. You have to, to exist you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not.

Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society the way a child catches measles. But people with more understanding realize that their presuppositions should be chosen after a careful consideration of what world-view is true.

If you don't have some sort of belief system by which to center your life, it's hard sometimes to understand why you would put up with your family.

Since ideology is part of the human personality, it deserves a place in the kingdom of eternal truths.

I think college is an absolute. In this world you have to learn how to learn and get in the habit of always wanting to learn. Some kids have that out of high school and may be able to do the college equivalent of home schooling. Most kids can't. So I highly recommend going to college.