I know that when the...

I know that when the world surrenders, pallid, to repose, the murmur of a tranquil stream through the deep silence flows.

Much of the time, the...

Much of the time, the question goes unasked in prosperous liberal democracies like Britain or the United States, because most of us see political equality as exhausted by “one person, one vote” and dig no deeper; we know that one person, one vote coexists with the better-off and better-organized buying influence through lobbying, campaign contributions, and use of the mass media, but we find ourselves puzzled to balance a belief that everyone has the right to use his or her resources to influence government—which is certainly one form of political equality—with our sense that excessive inequality of political resources undermines democracy.

Descartes is rightly regarded as...

Descartes is rightly regarded as the father of modern philosophy primarily and generally because he helped the faculty of reason to stand on its own feet by teaching men to use their brains in place whereof the Bible, on the one hand, and Aristotle, on the other, had previously served.

There is nothing to say...

There is nothing to say about anything. So there can be no limit to the number of books.

For reasons mentioned at the...

For reasons mentioned at the beginning of this section, we cannot offer here a precise structural definition of semantical category and will content ourselves with the following approximate formulation: two expressions belong to the same semantical category if (I) there is a sentential function which contains one of these expressions, and if (2) no sentential function which contains one of these expressions ceases to be a sentential function if this expression is replaced in it by the other. It follows from this that the relation of belonging to the same category is reflective, symmetrical and transitive. By applying the principle of abstraction, all the expressions of the language which are parts of sentential functions can be divided into mutually exclusive classes, for two expressions are put into one and the same class if and only if they belong to the same semantical category, and each of these classes is called a semantical category. Among the simplest examples of semantical categories it suffices to mention the category of the sentential functions, together with the categories which include respectively the names of individuals, of classes of individuals, of two-termed relations between individuals, and so on. Variables (or expressions with variables) which represent names of the given categories likewise belong to the same category.

A reproach can only hurt...

A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it with contempt.

If death is as horrible...

If death is as horrible as is claimed, how is it that after the passage of a certain period of time we consider happy any being, friend or enemy, who has ceased to live?

It is impossible that each...

It is impossible that each of the elements should be infinite. For that is body which has interval on all sides; and that is infinite which has extension without bound.

The self is divided within...

The self is divided within itself, willing what it does not will and not willing what it wills.

When you talk about a...

When you talk about a revolution, most people think violence; without realizing that the real content of any kind of revolutionary thrust lies in the principles and the goals that you're striving for - not in the way that you reach them. On the other hand, because of the way this society is organized; because of the violence that exists on the surface everywhere - you'd have to expect that there are going to be such explosions. You have to expect things like that as reactions.

Money is human happiness in...

Money is human happiness in the abstract: he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes his heart entirely to money.

I feel effective, competent, likely...

I feel effective, competent, likely to do something positive only when I lie down and abandon myself to an interrogation without object or end.

The man of system, on...

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.

A modest man is steady,...

A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous.

The subject of a gestalt...

The subject of a gestalt demonstration knows that his perception has shifted because he can make it shift back and forth repeatedly while he holds the same book or piece of paper in his hands. Aware that nothing in his environment has changed, he directs his attention increasingly not to the figure (duck or rabbit) but to the lines of the paper he is looking at. Ultimately he may even learn to see those lines without seeing either of the figures, and he may then say (what he could not legitimately have said earlier) that it is these lines that he really sees but that he sees them alternately as a duck and as a rabbit. ...As in all similar psychological experiments, the effectiveness of the demonstration depends upon its being analyzable in this way. Unless there were an external standard with respect to which a switch of vision could be demonstrated, no conclusion about alternate perceptual possibilities could be drawn.

With other beliefs crumbling, many...

With other beliefs crumbling, many seek to return to what they piously describe as “Enlightenment values”. But these values were not as unambiguously benign as is nowadays commonly supposed.

There are three lines of...

There are three lines of life which stand out prominently to view: the life of pleasure, the political life, and the life of reflection.

The answer to this problem...

The answer to this problem is: as implied by Hume, we certainly are not justified in reasoning from an instance to the truth of the corresponding law. But to this negative result a second result, equally negative, may be added: we are justified in reasoning from a counterinstance to the falsity of the corresponding universal law (that is, of any law of which it is a counterinstance). Or in other words, from a purely logical point of view, the acceptance of one counterinstance to 'All swans are white' implies the falsity of the law 'All swans are white' - that law, that is, whose counterinstance we accepted. Induction is logically invalid; but refutation or falsification is a logically valid way of arguing from a single counterinstance to - or, rather, against - the corresponding law.This shows that I continue to agree with Hume's negative logical result; but I extend it.This logical situation is completely independent of any question of whether we would, in practice, accept a single counterinstance - for example, a solitary black swan - in refutation of a so far highly successful law. I do not suggest that we would necessarily be so easily satisfied; we might well suspect that the black specimen before us was not a swan."

In all history there is...

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful. The government assures the people that they are in danger from the invasion of another nation, or from foes in their midst, and that the only way to escape this danger is by the slavish obedience of the people to their government. This fact is seen most prominently during revolutions and dictatorships, but it exists always and everywhere that the power of the government exists. Every government explains its existence, and justifies its deeds of violence, by the argument that if it did not exist the condition of things would be very much worse. After assuring the people of its danger the government subordinates it to control, and when in this condition compels it to attack some other nation. And thus the assurance of the government is corroborated in the eyes of the people, as to the danger of attack from other nations.

Political Zionism is problematic for...

Political Zionism is problematic for obvious reasons. But I can never forget what it achieved as a moral force in an era of complete dissolution. It helped to stem the tide of ‘progressive’ leveling of venerable, ancestral differences; it fulfilled a conservative function.

As we approach the millennium,...

As we approach the millennium, we need to demystify the notion that this country is monolingual.

The heavy armor becomes the...

The heavy armor becomes the light dress of childhood; the pain is brief, the joy unending.

We regret not having the...

We regret not having the courage to make such and such decision; we regret much more having made one — any one. Better no action than the consequences of an action.

It appears, accordingly, from the...

It appears, accordingly, from the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that performed by slaves.

The knowledge of anything, since...

The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health. And because health and sickness and their causes are sometimes manifest, and sometimes hidden and not to be comprehended except by the study of symptoms, we must also study the symptoms of health and disease. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials. Of these causes there are four kinds: material, efficient, formal, and final.

Being summoned by the Athenians...

Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, Alcibiades absconded, saying that that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.

An old fairy tale has...

An old fairy tale has it that science began with the rejection of superstition. In fact it was the rejection of rationalism that gave birth to scientific inquiry. Ancient and medieval thinkers believed the world could be understood by applying first principles. Modern science begins when observation and experiment come first, and the results are accepted even when what they show seems to be impossible.

Misfortune shows those who are...

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

The open society is one...

The open society is one in which men have learned to be to some extent critical of taboos, and to base decisions on the authority of their own intelligence.

Seize the moments of happiness,...

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.

“Our ideas” are only partly...

“Our ideas” are only partly our ideas. Most of our ideas are abbreviations or residues of the thought of other people, of our teachers (in the broadest sense of the term) and of our teachers’ teachers; they are abbreviations and residues of the thought of the past. These thoughts were once explicit and in the center of consideration and discussion. It may even be presumed that they were once perfectly lucid. By being transmitted to later generations they have possibly been transformed, and there is no certainty that the transformation was effected consciously and with full clarity. … This means that the clarification of our political ideas insensibly changes into and becomes indistinguishable from the history of political ideas.

We are never without a...

We are never without a pilot. When we know not how to steer, and dare not hoist a sail, we can drift. The current knows the way, though we do not. The ship of heaven guides itself, and will not accept a wooden rudder.

The most important message, which...

The most important message, which we have also learned from the work of Chandra Mohanty and Jacqui Alexander, is that we can never assume that the category “women” equally represents all women. [There are] hierarchies of race and class, and now that we have begun to challenge the binary assumptions behind gender, we can say hierarchies of gender as well. Where, for example, does a transgender woman figure into the hierarchy?

If to describe a misery...

If to describe a misery were as easy to live through it!

A merchant, it has been...

A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.

It is a mistake to...

It is a mistake to think that the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this moment. The present is merely the past rolled up and concentrated in this second of time. You, too, are your past; often your face is your autobiography; you are what you are because of what you have been; because of your heredity stretching back into forgotten generations; because of every element of environment that has affected you, every man or woman that has met you, every book that you have read, every experience that you have had; all these are accumulated in your memory, your body, your character, your soul. So with a city, a country, and a race; it is its past, and cannot be understood without it.

A physician, after he had...

A physician, after he had felt the pulse of Pausanias, and considered his constitution, saying, "He ails nothing," "It is because, sir," he replied, "I use none of your physic."

In a traditional reading eating...

In a traditional reading eating the apple was the original sin; but, as Gnostics understood the story, the two primordial humans were right to eat the apple. The God that commanded them not to do so was not the true God but only a demiurge, a tyrannical underling exulting in its power, while the serpent came to free them from slavery. True, when they ate the apple Adam and Eve fell from grace. This was indeed the Fall of Man – a fall into the dim world of everyday consciousness. But the Fall need not be final. Having eaten its fill from the Tree of Knowledge, humankind can then rise into a state of conscious innocence. When this happens, Herr C. declares, it will be ‘the final chapter in the history of the world'.

Tolerance and apathy are the...

Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society.

There are all kinds of...

There are all kinds of sources of our knowledge; but none has authority ... The fundamental mistake made by the philosophical theory of the ultimate sources of our knowledge is that it does not distinguish clearly enough between questions of origin and questions of validity.

"If you want him defined,...

"If you want him defined, here he is: a prime, well-fed beast such as takes medals at the cattle shows, and nothing more," he said, with a tone of vexation that interested her."No; how so?" she replied. "He's seen a great deal, anyway; he's cultured?""It's an utterly different culture—their culture. He's cultivated, one sees, simply to be able to despise culture, as they despise everything but animal pleasures."

All there is to thinking...

All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable, which makes you see something you weren't noticing, which makes you see something that isn't even visible.

The word liberty in the...

The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtesan.

It was my experience in...

It was my experience in the Angela Davis trial that propelled me into a study of Afro-American women's history and, ultimately, into women's studies.

By virtue of depression, we...

By virtue of depression, we recall those misdeeds we buried in the depths of our memory. Depression exhumes our shames.

To hinder, besides, the farmer...

To hinder, besides, the farmer from selling his goods at all times to the best market, is evidently to sacrifice the ordinary laws of justice to an idea of public utility, to a sort of reasons of state; an act of legislative authority which ought to be exercised only, which can be pardoned only in cases of the most urgent necessity.

Here then is what we...

Here then is what we understand by these words: “the equalization of the classes.” It would perhaps have been better to say suppression of the classes, the unification of society by the abolition of economic and social inequality. But we have also demanded the equalization of the individuals, and it is there especially that we attract all the thunderbolts of outraged eloquence from our adversaries. One has made use of that part of our proposition to prove in a conclusive manner that we are nothing but communists.

All the problems that disturb...

All the problems that disturb us today—the cutting down of forests and the erosion of the soil; the emancipation of woman and the limitation of the family; the conservatism of the established, and the experimentalism of the unplaced, in morals, music, and government; the corruptions of politics and the perversions of conduct; the conflict of religion and science, and the weakening of the supernatural supports of morality; the war of the classes, the nations, and the continents; the revolutions of the poor against the economically powerful rich, and of the rich against the politically powerful poor; the struggle between democracy and dictatorship, between individualism and communism, between the East and the West—all these agitated, as if for our instruction, the brilliant and turbulent life of ancient Hellas. There is nothing in Greek civilization that does not illuminate our own.

If … the motion of...

If … the motion of the earth were circular, it would be violent and contrary to nature, and could not be eternal, since … nothing violent is eternal.… It follows, therefore, that the earth is not moved with a circular motion.

Animals are rational; in most...

Animals are rational; in most of them logos is imperfect, but it is certainly not wholly lacking. So if, as our opponents say, justice applies to rational beings, why should not justice, for us, also apply to animals?