philosophy

"Everyone thinks they'll make a better judge than any judge don't they? You see these nonces getting off with a six quid fine and being given a house next door to a school. And you think 'I wouldn't ha…"

"Most people in reasoning, dear Phaedrus, use notions that not only are "ready-made," but have actually been made by nobody. No one is responsible for them, and so they serve everyone badly."

"I applied my reason at every moment. Reason is excellent for getting food, clothing and shelter. Reason is the very best tool kit. Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reas…"

"To spend for destruction ten times more than for instruction, such is the fashion in our time; and men seriously regard themsleves as rational beings !"

"Wherever they went, William and his Norman lieutenants built castles. About 170 great vassals came to England with William. When the king rewarded his followers with grants of land, they also assumed …"

"The honour and respect that a country earns by being represented at mega-sporting events like the Grand Slams has to be seen to be believed, experienced to be fully understood."

"I don't have a big thing about leaving my mark or being historic."

"Jeff McMahan on Killing in War. An interview for Philosophy Bites, 21 Nov. 2009"

"My party, unfortunately, is the bastion of those people, not all of them, but most of them, who are still basing their decision on race. Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists. And the rea…"

"My models showed that ultimately almost nobody really survived; bears dropped like flies in the rally and bulls ended up being slaughtered... But there was one exception... option buyers... could buy …"

"Being an art form, verse cannot be "free" in the sense of having no limitations or guiding principle."

"May I recommend, if you're doing your own homework, don't do a Google search. Seems to me that Google is pretty deeply in bed with the government. Maybe this is explaining why Google is being kicked o…"

"It's not only the question, but the way you try to solve it."

"being used to coerce the UK into becoming a vassal state of Brussels"

"The Lee myth. Lee being above slavery, Lee being in fact anti-slavery, is essential to the neo-Confederate argument that it's not about race, it's not about slavery. They've done a very good job of co…"

"For a week I was in a scene equal to anything in the Arabian Nights—such processions, such dresses, such corteges of horsemen, such caravans of camels. Then the delight of being made much of by a man …"

"The philosophy which affects to teach us a contempt of money does not run very deep; for, indeed, it ought to be still more clear to the philosopher than it is to ordinary men, that there are few thin…"

"Finally we should note the basic assumption of the classical laboratory-namely, that nature is neither capricious nor secretive. If nature were capricious, she would tell one observer one thing and an…"

"No one is safe from religious ideas and confessional phenomena. Neither you nor I. We can fall victim to them when we least expect it. It's like Mao flu, or being struck by lightning. You're utterly h…"

"The society in which we live is the result of our psychological state."