There was a line in one of the old classics… Ben-Hur, maybe? Spartacus? One of the shirtless movies, anyway. The senator and his friend were walking in the street and interacted with a stall proprietor who said “Blessings of Jupiter upon you!” and the Senator said similar back. As they walked away, the friend said “you don’t believe in this Jupiter nonsense do you?” and the Senator rejoined “privately, I believe in none of the gods, publicly I believe in them all.”
This quote reminded me of that.
There’s a story that Niels Bohr had a horse shoe on the wall over his desk. One day a student asked if he really believed that a horse shoe brought luck. Professor Bohr replied, “Of course not, but I have been told that it brings luck whether you believe in it or not.”
There was a line in one of the old classics… Ben-Hur, maybe? Spartacus? One of the shirtless movies, anyway. The senator and his friend were walking in the street and interacted with a stall proprietor who said “Blessings of Jupiter upon you!” and the Senator said similar back. As they walked away, the friend said “you don’t believe in this Jupiter nonsense do you?” and the Senator rejoined “privately, I believe in none of the gods, publicly I believe in them all.”
This quote reminded me of that.
There’s a story that Niels Bohr had a horse shoe on the wall over his desk. One day a student asked if he really believed that a horse shoe brought luck. Professor Bohr replied, “Of course not, but I have been told that it brings luck whether you believe in it or not.”