Quotes by Mentovich Ferenc

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Man once proudly said how the flora was created to provide him with food; however, after today's chemistry has made it clear that we return the goods we have received to the plants, by making carbonic acid for them through the process of breathing, wouldn't the plant also be able to say just as proudly: that man was created to make formula for us by taking the breath?

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The spirit is not only not humiliated, but is exalted by the assumption that it takes its origin from matter. Or whose nobility can be given more, the one who inherited his dog's skin from giant ancestors, demigods, or the one who rose from the dust and came into possession of it by his own merits?!

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``Just as there is no yarn without a spindle, no canvas without a loom, just as there is no thought without a brain: there can be no more doubt about this.

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The soul is not independent, it is a higher force that can exist independently of the body: but it is the noblest product of the material that plays such an important role in the household of nature, and is the proper function of the highly organized brain.

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One of the accusations leveled against modern materialism is that it disturbs the mood, that by upsetting the tranquility that people thought was so imperturbable in the magnificent hall of the world view built by philosophy and religious faith: it gives occasion for scandal. Why disturb - they exclaim - the calmness of conviction; after all, what joy can there be in Herostratus' glory seeking to destroy the bright temple of faith?! We too would condemn this aspiration, we too would exclaim: why disturb the peace of conviction! If peace and not truth were the goal, what should we strive for; if our spirits were not rooted in the desire to seek the truth. But is the chemist really looking for peace, who conducts chemical experiments with health - even life-threatening substances? does the astronomer look for peace when he watches the nights with his eyes fixed on the sky? (...) On the contrary, they sacrifice their peace, risk their lives just to expand the realm of true knowledge one step further; so that they can disperse a small speck of darkness from the bright day of truth.

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The human soul differs from the soul of animals only quantitatively and not qualitatively.

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Truth - if it does not usurp it, but truly deserves this name - can only harm prejudices: it must have a beneficial effect on art, morality and religion.

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Not even the greatest minds can squeeze out truth, (...) without taking stock of the facts, the flamboyant minds just build houses of cards, which collapse even at the touch of the weakest breeze of reality.

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We have friends and acquaintances who have perfected their art in prison, but why does the soul, this spark torn from infinite wisdom, need to be imprisoned in the prison of the body, and how can contact with vile material serve as an opportunity for it to achieve perfection, when without this useless burden it could be done more reliably - it is impossible to grasp it.

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If someone occupies a path with their arms on their hips like pitchers' ears, there is no other way to pass than to either push them aside or push them to the side.

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The soul, i.e. the excellent talent of man according to which he feels and thinks, creates concepts, judgments and imaginations, is not something that can be separated from the body, a higher force that can exist independently; but the noblest product of the nature that lives around us, it is obviously a function of the brain, which grows together with the producing organs, declines together, and dies together.

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No matter where we look on the earth and above the earth, we cannot find any data that would prove the existence of supernatural forces.

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For those who carry the intellectual development of humanity and the enrichment of knowledge on their hearts, they do not have to do anything other than whisper now or quietly, and then loudly - as the circumstances require - continue the truth that has been spoken; not to allow it to be buried like a treasure dug into the ground, but to make it shine in people's eyes from time to time.

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Do not the hope of reward and the fear of punishment, but from the impulse of the love of good and the contempt of evil, do virtue and avoid evil.

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Delusions (...) are similar to the weed of the field, which sprouts, grows, is uprooted and then - it does not need a hand to exterminate - withers on its own.

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The size, beauty and shape of the plant depend on the soil in which it is rooted; and the animal will be big or small, tame or wild, beautiful or ugly, according to the circumstances in which it grew up; and the intestinal worm will be different, according as it enters the interior of one or another animal; man, physically as well as spiritually, is nothing more than the product of such external circumstances, influences and events, as a result of which he cannot become the spiritually independent, freely self-determining being that the philosophers imagine him to be without any basis.

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Like one egg to another, there is a very similar relationship between cerebral and mental activity, they are born together, develop together, and decline together; if I block the blood channel leading to the brain, self-awareness, thought ceases, so all mental functioning, if I let it go, reappears as if by magic, from which I have to conclude with common sense, just like with the muscle: that t. i. brain and mental functioning are inseparably one, the latter being a function of the former. Anyone who attributes self-awareness, feeling, i.e., mental activity to a separate plant planted in the brain, can just as rightly and logically attribute it to muscles, liver, kidneys, etc. a separate independent spirit; you can just as rightly talk about a muscle spirit, a liver spirit, a kidney spirit, etc.

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The truth is the sweet brother of the basic principle of poetry: the beautiful, and in fact, in art and poetry they merge into one, because the truly beautiful is also true.

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Among earthly things, only truth has the privilege: it does not change, it does not grow old, it retains its eternal youth; it is similar to the sky, which is the same color at all times, and in a thousand years it will be as blue as it is today.

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Whoever wants to deprive humanity of its most sacred treasures: science, art and morality, is more guilty than the evildoer who breaks down the doors of the church.

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The facts speak louder than they could be shouted over with philosophical noise.

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Science, emancipating itself from the tutelage of religion, forms a separate household nowadays.

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The actions of nations and individual people are not the result of an internal will that knows no limits, but are determined by external circumstances and the laws of natural necessity.

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You can only compete with facts against facts.

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The sacrosanct worldview according to which this earthly existence would be nothing more than a wretched and miserable prison of the soul; the body is a useless waste, which weighs handcuffed to the ground on the wings of the spirit striving for heaven; and that this mesalliance of body and soul is finally dissolved by the angel of death, when the soul shakes off the transitory and perishable particles of dust and wins the crown of eternal life... this view, I say, has brought matter into disrepute, has degraded it into a veritable pariah the body. (...) Natural science, exploring matter in its thousands and thousands of hidden ways, paying attention to the role it plays in the household of nature, sees it in a different light, judges in a different way about the relationship between matter and force, body and soul, which judgment it sounds: that matter is not inferior to the spirit, but is in any case equal to it.

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When we see that a slight pressure on the brain deprives us of our consciousness, when every twenty-four hours we have the opportunity to experience that in the arms of a healthy dream - even when our vital organs do not cease to function, but are forced to slow activity - we are completely unconscious for several hours: can we hope with common sense that in that bigger dream, in which, according to the poet, "the little stream that drives the heart" finally dries up, the organ of thought, the nerves of the brain can no longer be nourished by its waves - can we hope, I say, that doesn't our self-awareness leave us, that our soul will continue its spiritual operation?!

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When, due to withering and decay, we see the delicate flower melt into a few grains of dust, the human and animal body into handfuls of earth, let us not think that the particles of matter that make them up have withered away and been destroyed; they just left the old connection to go to a finger; rising on wings, they scattered in the air to give rise to new life.

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The sum of matter that makes up the universe, just as it cannot be multiplied by a speck of dust over time, it does not lose a speck of dust from itself. Matter cannot be destroyed, matter is immortal.

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We did not see that even the weakest kind of cataract would have disappeared from the eyes after the doctor's first remedy. We did not see that even the strongest storm would have been able to tear off the dark clouds in the sky all at once: first it only thins and thins it, and only then can the beneficial rays of the sun shine from under it.

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Without taking into account the facts and, above all, the truths of natural science (...) it is impossible to philosophize, (...) those who do not take these into account build their reasonings: they build fortresses that collapse even at the touch of the slightest breeze, they give birth to stillborns , which sooner or later have their abodes in the grave of oblivion.

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A person is more independent from material needs in terms of wealth, from diseases in terms of health, and has cultivated his mind more: the more he can overcome the internal and external circumstances that influence his actions.

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Like when we throw a stone into the smooth mirror of the sea, the stone only falls to the bottom of the sea, it rests for a long time in its mud; but the ring of waves, which he caused on his smooth mirror, continues his way far above him, perhaps forever; continuously forming larger circles, it stirs up the resting waves, then hits the rock in its path, creating resounding sounds. This is how we are with the spiritual influence: the individual is lost, but the spiritual influence he caused continues his journey in smaller and larger circles above the grave. The virtuous father of the family has long been resting in the depths of the earth, but his teaching and example live on in his children and grandchildren. The poet's ashes have long since become toys of the winds, but the song that was conceived in his bosom will echo in the hearts of the living for a long time. The hero, who fell in defense of his country, has been silent for a long time, but his actions speak loudly, awakening the later generation to new actions. They do not even know where the grave of the scientist, who kept vigil for the benefit of humanity, is: but the ideas he ignited became beacons of light in the stormy ocean of humanity.

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The greater the gap between the dogmas of religion and intellectual enlightenment, the greater the indifference to religious matters. Because how can I consider as a guiding torch that religious principle, to which my common sense developed from prejudices and my enlightenment based on the sciences have the stamp of injustice and even inability?

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Even the fixed stars visible to the naked eye are so far away from us that using the yardstick to determine their distance would be like trying to measure the length of the Hungarian Empire with a match.

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Acknowledging a mistake is half an improvement in itself.

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Convictions based on delusions cannot provide a permanent resting place; similar to a house that, built on a swamp, threatens to collapse at any moment; not in other temporary accommodation, from which sooner or later we either have to drag ourselves out voluntarily, or they will put out our filter.

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Ignorance makes people cowardly and shy, it creates a dark night around you.

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Not only in politics, but also in the realm of science, there are misconceptions and prejudices that stand in the way of real development; but here, as there, there are champions of determined will, who feel strength enough to fight the obstinacy of heresy, and to face the lightning that shoots from the dark clouds of prejudice. They call themselves libertarians in politics and materialists in science.

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Daydreaming suits the beardless young man, but is inappropriate for the serious man. Humanity reaching manhood must seek the real, from which, even if its face is darker than its daydreams, it must not shy away.

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Don't those who are convinced that divine wisdom could not have needed to suspend the laws of nature, to resort to absurdities contrary to common sense, in order to show its greatness, goodness and omnipotence to people, have a more correct and more honorable concept of the dignity of the deity? declare?

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There was not as much work, as much effort was spent on building the thousand-year-old pyramids as on proving the statement that the soul is a self-existent force independent of the body, which is only temporarily connected to the latter; when the clock strikes: the ropes that shackle the wings of the soul to the ground are torn and the immortal prisoner rises towards the homeland of eternal life. We do not deny, it is a sublime subject for a Cathedra oration, suitable to fill the disappointed human heart to overflowing with the sweet drink of hope; but as a truth (...) it does not stand the test of fire.

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Jesus did not aim to leave behind a scientific encyclopaedia for the later centuries: but to reform humanity in moral terms. And in this he achieved his goal perfectly.

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Common sense, unbiased reason (...) exercises the main power given to it more surely, more correctly and more in accordance with the truth, and can free itself from the shackles of prejudices.

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The truth, in some respects, is better than the sun. As long as the sun blindly covers the eyes that are bold enough to look into them, the rays of truth slowly dispel the haze that rests on them, dispel the fog of prejudices darker than night from the soul.

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Only those inclined to morbid mysticism can see supernatural forces reaching down from the sky and mingling with the stream of earthly things; reason strengthened by the truths of natural science searches for them in vain, it cannot invent them.

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During the course of a month, our body undergoes a complete transformation; today we are made of completely different material than four weeks ago. Similar to that piece of cloud that seems to be brooding over a higher ridge; the eye thinks it sees the same group of mists in front of it, although, being in constant growth and attack, its constituent parts change, but its shape remains. Or similar to the foam cluster, which retains its shape permanently, but owes its existence to new foams due to continuous distribution and formation.