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Your favorite Charles Fort quote
So, would anyone like to share their favorite quote from Mr Fort?
So, would anyone like to share their favorite quote from Mr Fort?
A NAKED man in a city street -- the track of a horse in volcanic mud -- the mystery of the reindeer's ears -- a huge, black form, like a whale, in the sky, and it drips red drops as if attacked by celestial swordfishes -- an appalling cherub appears in the sea --
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
Often attributed to Fort. But take a look on the intermaweb, and it's also attributed to Arthur C. Clarke, who attributes it to good ole 'anonymous'. So, is it original to Fort? Where in his books does it occur (I couldn't find it by googling through resologist.net)?
Clarke's Fourth Law:
For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.
You didn't hear about the fourth law? Well, yes, he did promise to stop with the third (like “both the Isaacs”), but the nineties edition of Profiles added this blatant contravention of the standard do‐everything‐in‐threes protocol. ...
Proposed fourth law
A fourth law has been proposed for the canon, despite Clarke's declared intention of not going one better than Newton. Geoff Holder quotes: "For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert," which is part of American economist Thomas Sowell's "For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert, but for every fact there is not necessarily an equal and opposite fact", from his 1995 book The Vision of the Anointed.
Against all the opposition in the world, I make this statement--that once I knew a magician. I was a witness of a performance that may some day be considered understandable, but that, in these primitive times, so transcends what is said to be the known that it is what I mean by magic.
That is one fabulous and fascinating investigation.This is often called Clarke's Fourth Law. The laws referred to are those Clarke specified in his book Profiles of the Future (1962 and many editions thereafter).
“Do things fall where a universal mind, which may be the mind of an idiot, conceives that they are needed?" (p. 157)
"Taking his cue from Fort, author Damon Knight speculated, "If there is a universal mind, must it be sane?" It wasn't the myriad of Fort's phenomena that stunned readers, but one underlying suggestion that human beings have always found to be hair-raising: The world is actually irrational." (From the Author's Introduction)
Speech for MENSA Convention, 10/29/72 (1)
Here, to follow up on John’s 1970 speech to the Humanist Society, is one for a MENSA convention in NYC in 1972. He touches on some of the same subjects, but is more concerned with the connections between paranormal and religious experiences. ...
In one of his books, Fort asked, "If there is a universal mind, must it be sane?" In fact, he almost titled one book, "Is God Sane?". (p. 4 in the speech manuscript)
A few corrections about Charles Fort: he was not a “little man,” but six feet tall and stocky; he died in 1932, not 1931; the quotation “If there is a universal mind, must it be sane?” (with which John closes The Mothman Prophecies) was written by Damon Knight, in his biography of Fort; it was Aaron Sussman who proposed the title God Is an Idiot, which Fort rejected, preferring Tiffany Thayer’s suggestion Lo!
"One measures a circle, beginning anywhere." One measurers a circle, beginning at ~ the edge?This one from Lo!:
"One measures a circle, beginning anywhere."
I am a collector of oddities.
a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles.