philosophy

"Miracles in mysticism don't occupy such an important place. It's metaphor, for the peasants, for the crowds, to impress people. What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. I…"

"The whole reason of this War is because the Germans have no sense of humor."

"If I realised the power of magic to worry and terrify people before, then I certainly would have used it before. Everyone freezes before it for different reasons – perhaps because it means madness to …"

"The Macedonian language is actually an artifact produced for primarily political reasons."

"Americans are well aware that there has been a revolution. In morals. In manners. In speech. In crime rates. In riots. In violence. In drugs. In sex. In pornography. In politics. In movies. In educati…"

"One of the questions whose answers we seek is why we seek."

"Emergent structuring, whereby participants discover or adopt certain similar strategies within bounded rationality and situations with certain opportunity structures and incentive structures. Social n…"

"I began my talk by saying that I had not written my plays for purposes of discussion. At once, I felt a ripple of panic run through the hall. I suddenly realised why. To everyone present, discussion w…"

"The next 100 years will see the beginning of an American matriarchy—a nation of amazons in the psychological rather than the physical sense. In 500 years there will be a serious sex battle. And in 100…"

"One of the problems I see with these comics on television, particularly cable television, is, since you can say anything in terms of sex and scatological references and so on, therefore, you should do…"

"It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God."

"I would suggest to you the advantage, at present, of being very sparing in introducing theory in your papers : let theory guide your observations, but till your reputation is well established be spari…"

"My individualism was a logical extension of the anarchist principle beyond its narrow application to one particular form or mode of constraint upon the individual. The thing that interested me, as it …"

"Monetary policy is a serious issue. We should discuss this in secret, in the Eurogroup I'm ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious I am for secret, dark debat…"

"At least the mentor’s point was made: loneliness was psychological, not statistical."

"he establishment of a belligerent force’s intentions is always an urgently important matter in itself, regardless of how likely its ultimate victory may be, as America should have learned on December …"

"What is the purpose of being really intelligent if not to have the substance of what you want without mistaking it for the shadow?"

"We offset the pursuit of our well-being with notions of altruism, and temper our happiness with feelings of guilt. In the vernacular of pop psychology, we speak of being ‘self-alienated’ people who ha…"

"They're putting the cart before the horse on this pornography issue. Playboy doesn't cause sexual thoughts. There are sexual thoughts, and, therefore, there is Playboy. Don't you see? I know these sou…"

"In the long term, we've got to defeat an ideology of hate with an ideology of hope. There's a reason why people like bin Laden are able to recruit suiciders, because if you don't have hope, you're att…"