One

(1)

The meaning of a word or sentence is the current conviction about its meaning.

Ask, and it will be constructed.

(2)

Your questions determine the horizon you see.

(3)

Some convictions follow plausibility: a hypothesis must first seem plausible before it settles.

Pain does not require plausibility.

(4)

Seeing convinces. Reasoning corrects.

(5)

How convinced are you that a ladybug is cuter than a spider?

On what grounds?

(6)

How can I believe without justification?

You already do.
Justification is not the whole of it.

(7)

Conviction does not wait for justification.

(8)

When nothing holds conviction in place, it oscillates. Some patterns exist only to stop it.

She loves me, she loves me not.

Pick a daisy and find out.

(9)

Trust grows through repeated interaction in which nothing fails.

(10)

Risky actions are often borrowed from stories in which they succeeded.

(11)

Why would Sextus Empiricus write a book if he were not convinced there is an audience?

That conviction does not mean he thought it was true.

(12)

If metaphysics is a fortress and skepticism gives everything away, conviction formation is a tent, a stove, and a few tools.

(13)

Conviction is not always needed to do a job. You can do as you're told.

That may be enough for a good life, but not for a life of your own.

(14)

Guilt, shame, regret, thirst for justice, and trauma are real consequences of actions and convictions.

They bind, and one has to live with them.

(15)

Reasonable people can disagree about distant things. They rarely disagree about what is right in front of them.

(16)

Beliefs clash where certainty is claimed. Without it, coexistence becomes possible.

(17)

We begin by believing what we are told. In serious accusations, we learn not to.

(18)

What I don’t believe today, I may believe tomorrow.

(19)

A toddler cannot be convinced that the earth revolves around the sun. Nor could a Roman have been.

(20)

An aphorism does not do the convincing on its own.