Peter F. Hamilton Quotes

If we did not have rational souls, we would not be able to believe.

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

The role of the intelligence - that part of us which affirms and denies and formulates opinions is merely to submit.

That which exercises reason is more excellent than that which does not exercise reason

We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions.

Life is a value to be bought and thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.

I've gone through most of my life not believing anything. Either I know or I don't know, or I think.

I think maybe it is better to believe than not to believe. But I couldn't tell you why.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.

To think, analyze and invent, he [Pierre Menard] also wrote me, “are not anomalous acts, but the normal respiration of the intelligence. To glorify the occasional fulfillment of this function, to treasure ancient thoughts of others, to remember with incredulous amazement that the doctor universal is thought, is to confess our languor or barbarism. Every man should be capable of all ideas, and I believe that in the future he will be." (Jorge Luis Borges, "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote, 1939)

My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.

Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else that thinks at least as logically as it does.

You know very well that I no longer think. I am far too intelligent for that.

He that cannot reason is a fool.

Stupidity is no excuse of not thinking.

I just happen to believe that people are not stupid.

The glory of man is that he is a thinking being. It is the nature of man to think and therein he differs from animals

Why should I believe any of this?' It happens that fast. I say, because I think I like you. Marla says, 'Not love?' This is a cheesy enough moment, I say. Don't push it.

Let him make use of instinct who cannot make use of reason.

Look, I don't know whether God exists. I don't know that. And I tell you one thing, I am not frightened of my beliefs. If there is a God who is threatening me with damnation because I don't believe in Him, so be it. I've lived my life in conscience, and I will suffer damnation willingly in conscience against a tyrannical God who would damn me because, on the basis of the intelligence He gave me, I have come to a conclusion doubting His existence, and I will continue to be a skeptic all of my life.

I don't think I'm extremely intelligent by any means.

It is impossible to live without brains, either one's own or borrowed.

If you know what life is worth, you will look for yours on earth.

I would like to believe there is a God, but I think it is better to say I'm not sure there is a God and live your life with kindness and respect for people than to say I know there is a God and then do bad things.