Thomas Nagel Quotes

Facts are counterrevolutionary.

Knowledge is justified belief.

The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events: its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself...

Without facts you can't have truth.

The world begins with what we believe.

[It's] troubling because it reminds us how difficult it is to prove anything. We like to pretend that our experiments define the truth for us. But that's often not the case. Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true. When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe.

The world is what you believe it to be, and it changes as you change.

Behold your world! The judgments you believe just created it.

The sorcerer's description of the world is perceivable. But our insistence on holding on to our standard version of reality renders us almost deaf and blind to it.

What you believe to be the truth directly determines your attitude towards yourself and the world, the words you say and the actions you take.

We realized that the version of the world they rendered for us was not the version of the world they really believed in.

What transforms this world is - knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.

Opinion is something wherein I go about to give reasons why all the world should think as I think.

Appearances do not deceive if there are enough of them.

The world could be anything, you know, It could be a solid state matrix of some sort. It could be an illusion. It could be a dream. I mean it really could be a dream.

Just because something didn't happen doesn't mean it isn't true.

The truth properly means the sum of all true propositions, what omniscience would assert, the whole ideal system of qualities andrelations which the world has exemplified or will exemplify. The truth is all things seen under the form of eternity.

As soon as you look at the world through an ideology, you are finished. No reality fits ideology.

The mind is a metaphor of the world of objects.

That which you believe becomes your world

Nothing's real unless you want it to be, and anything can be real if you want it to enough; so real doesn't really mean anything.

I could invent another world. I'm not terribly keen on this one.

The impossible is justified by the fact that it occurred

Everyone has been a witness sometime - It doesn't change it if you don't believe.

Reality is: Should people steal in this world? Yes. How do I know they should? They all do.