Philosopher Quotes

Surely binationalism is not love, but there is, we might say, a necessary and impossible attachment that makes a mockery of identity, an ambivalence that emerges from the decentering of the nationalist ethos and that forms the basis of a permanent ethical demand.

In every saint there lurks an arrant knave, the marrow of all holyness being absolute hellishness. That is why our Saviours are of no awail, their remedies being too strong for common man, who is the puppet of his fleshly appetite and not a sinner.

Terror itself, when once grown transcendental, becomes a kind of courage; as frost sufficiently intense, according to the poet Milton, will burn.

When we say that scientific knowledge is unlimited, we mean "there is no question whose answer is in principle unattainable by science."

History is replete with examples of what happens when any group of authorities do not have to answer to empirical evidence but are free to define truth as they see fit. None of the examples has a happy ending. Why should it be otherwise with therapy?

Robert Todd Carroll

We must only learn that independence cannot be gained by a rebellion against the constitution of the universe, or by inverting the laws of life and evolution, but by comprehending them and adapting ourselves to the world in which we live.

Either history is really governed by laws, and in that case a truly human-activity is impossible, except perhaps in a technical sense; or human beings really make their own history, and then the task of theory will not be directed to discovering 'laws', but to the elucidation of the conditions with in which human activity unfolds.

Cornelius Castoriadis

Can human beings change? The humor, and the sadness, of remarriage comedies can be said to result from the fact that we have no good answer to that question.

The press is a sort of wild animal in our midst — restless, gigantic, always seeking new ways to use its strength.... The sovereign press for the most part acknowledges accountability to no one except its owners and publishers.

Zechariah Chafee

Whoever imposes severe punishment becomes repulsive to the people; while he who awards mild punishment becomes contemptible. But whoever imposes punishment as deserved becomes respectable. For punishment when awarded with due consideration, makes the people devoted to righteousness and to works productive of wealth and enjoyment; while punishment, when ill-awarded under the influence of greed and anger or owing to ignorance, excites fury even among hermits and ascetics dwelling in forests, not to speak of householders.

Wounds and hardships provoke our courage, and when our fortunes are at the lowest, our wits and minds are commonly at the best.

We are advised and led along by second-rate moralists who only know how to work themselves into a delirium and pass their illness onto others.

Émile Chartier

Wise people are in want of nothing, and yet need many things. On the other hand, nothing is needed by fools, for they do not understand how to use anything, but are in want of everything.

Although many philosophers used to dismiss the relevance of neuroscience on grounds that what mattered was the software, not the hardware, increasingly philosophers have come to recognize that understanding how the brain works is essential to understanding the mind.

Patricia Churchland

All that shimmers on the surface of the world, all that we call interesting, is the fruit of ignorance and inebriation.

The more thorough the understanding needed, the further back in time one must go.

Those who still eat flesh when they could do otherwise have no claim to be serious moralists.

Stephen R. L. Clark

Pedantry consists in the use of words unsuitable to the time, place, and company.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The domain of physics is no proper field for mathematical pastimes. The best security would be in giving a geometrical training to physicists, who need not then have recourse to mathematicians, whose tendency is to despise experimental science.

Our churches are filled with Christians who are idling in intellectual neutral. As Christians, their minds are going to waste. One result of this is an immature, superficial faith. People who simply ride the roller coaster of emotional experience are cheating themselves out of a deeper and richer Christian faith by neglecting the intellectual side of that faith.

William Lane Craig

Things are sullen, and will be as they are, whatever we think them or wish them to be.

Our prayers and fastings are of less avail, unless they are aided by almsgiving.

To some one who could grasp the universe from a unified standpoint, the entire creation would appear as a unique truth and necessity.

Jean le Rond d'Alembert

Women have had the power of naming stolen from us. We have not been free to use our own power to name ourselves, the world, or God.

The difference between "organic" and "mechanical" in social matters is a moral one: the "organic" is the result of innumerable humble acts; the "mechanical" is the result of one decisive act of arrogance.

Nicolás Gómez Dávila