#philosophers

My opinions about human nature are shared by many psychologists, linguists, and biologists, not to mention philosophers and scholars going back centuries. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#back #biologists #centuries #going #human

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands. ↗

— Plato

#call #come #end #hands #humanity

Philosophers are people who do violence, but have no army at their disposal, and so subjugate the world by locking it into a system. ↗

— Robert Musil

#disposal #into #locking #people #philosophers

That's why it's always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it's all is truth beauty and is beauty truth, and does a falling tree in the forest make a sound if there's no one there to hear it, and then just when you think they're going to start dribbling one of 'em says, incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy's ships would be a very interesting demonstration of optical principles. ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#beauty

Some philosophers can't bear to say simple things, like "Suppose a dog bites a man." They feel obliged instead to say, "Suppose a dog d bites a man m at time t," thereby demonstrating their unshakable commitment to logical rigor, even though they don't go on to manipulate any formulae involving d, m, and t. ↗

— Daniel C. Dennett

#philosophers #freedom

I have heard your orators speak on many questions. One among them the so-called vital question of money which is above all things the most coveted commodity but I, as a Hindu, as a Jainist, in the name of my countrymen and of my country, would offer you as the medium of the most perfect exchange between us, henceforth and forever, the indestructible, the unchangeable, the universal currency of good will and peace, and this, my brothers and sisters, is a currency that is not interchangeable with silver and gold, it is a currency of the heart, of the good life, of the highest estate on the earth and it is the currency of heaven. ↗

— Virchand Raghavji Gandhi

#commercialization #currency #earth #exchange #gold

It has always surprised me how little attention philosophers have paid to humor, since it is a more significant process of mind than reason. Reason can only sort out perceptions, but the humor process is involved in changing them. ↗

— Edward de Bono

#attention #changing #how #humor #involved

The method of exposition which philosophers have adopted leads many to suppose that they are simply inquiries, that they have no interest in the conclusions at which they arrive, and that their primary concern is to follow their premises to their logical conclusions. ↗

— Morris Raphael Cohen

#arrive #concern #conclusions #exposition #follow

It has generally been assumed that of two opposing systems of philosophy, e.g., realism and idealism, one only can be true and one must be false; and so philosophers have been hopelessly divided on the question, which is the true one. ↗

— Morris Raphael Cohen

#be true #been #divided #false #generally

Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. ↗

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

#each #hours #know #other #philosophers