Jonathan Swift Quotes

I enjoyed mathematics from a very young age. At the beginning of college, I had this illusion, which was kind of silly in retrospect, that if I just understood math and physics and philosophy, I could figure out everything else from first principles.

As it is, lovers of inquiry must follow their beloved wherever it may lead.

There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead.

One should not be too distracted by definitions. Ideas transcend definitions.

Opportunities are problems in search of solutions.

These arguments on each side (and many more might be produced) are so plausible, that I am apt to suspect, they may, the one as well as the other, be solid and satisfactory, and that reason and sentiment concur in almost all moral determinations and conclusions.

No more fiction, for now we calculate; but that we may calculate, we had to make fiction first.

A little humour is good for the soul - regardless of how old you may be.

A thinking partner who isn't an echo chamber... How many of us dare to have such collaborators?

The moment philosophy supposes it can find a final and comprehensive solution, it ceases to be inquiry and becomes either apologetics or propaganda.

I have the vagary of taking a lively interest in mathematical subjects only where I may anticipate ingenious association of ideas and results recommending themselves by elegance or generality.

It's so interesting that we think we know the rules to this game, this total hypothetical game called, "Would you," "If you had it to do over." It's not out there.

It is not the feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it may) which I call an assumption of infallibility. It is the undertaking to decide that question for others, without allowing them to hear what can be said on the contrary side. And I denounce and reprobate this pretension not the less, if put forth on the side of my most solemn convictions.

So long as there is any subject which men may not freely discuss, they are timid upon all subjects.

Different ‘philosophies’ represent nothing but methods of evaluation, which may lead to empirical mis-evaluation if science and empirical facts are disregarded.

In the age of mediocrity and clones, John Stowell's uniqueness and originality are a breath of fresh air. I love playing with him.

This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if he do but search diligently, find the literature suited to his mental powers.

There are moments in life where the question of knowing whether one might think otherwise than one thinks and perceive otherwise than one sees is indispensable if one is to continue to observe or reflect... What is philosophy today... if it does not consist in, instead of legitimizing what we already know, undertaking to know how and how far it might be possible to think otherwise?

The visible world was only an imperfect reflection of the Ideal, which the Philosopher sought to transcend.

The air smelled of paper and dust and years.

I may have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night.

... Philosophy proper is a subject, on the one hand so hopelessly obscure, on the other so astonishingly elementary, that there knowledge hardly counts.

Man is not permitted without censure to follow his own thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so little out of the common road.

Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons.

A metaphysical conclusion is either a false conclusion or a concealed experimental conclusion.