Murray Rothbard Quotes

I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God.

So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it.

Experience seems to most of us to lead to conclusions, but empiricism has sworn never to draw them.

Philosophy is the product of wonder.

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

Science is not wisdom.

To define knowledge as merely empirical is to limit one's ability to know; it enfeebles one's ability to feel and think.

Thenceforth they thought that, rationally concluded, doubt could become an instrument of knowledge.

The beliefs which we have most warrant for have no safeguard to rest on but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded. If the challenge is not accepted, or is accepted and the attempt fails, we are far enough from certainty still; but we have done the best that the existing state of human reason admits of; we have neglected nothing that could give the truth a chance of reaching us.

'Tis certain that our senses are extremely disproportioned for comprehending the whole compass and latitude of things.

To argue that the gaps in knowledge which confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity.

God forbid that Truth should be confined to Mathematical Demonstration!

The value given to the testimony of any feeling must depend on our whole philosophy, not our whole philosophy on a feeling.

Following Korzybski, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes... My only originality lies in applying this zetetic attitude outside the hardest of the hard sciences, physics, to softer sciences and then to non-sciences like politics, ideology, jury verdicts and, of course, conspiracy theory.

Small minds cannot grasp great subjects.

The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life-by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past-and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort.

The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind

Even today few scientists and perhaps even fewer nonscientists realize that science is a method and nothing else.

Philosophy ... is a science, and as such has no articles of faith; accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions.

The modern materialists are not permitted to doubt; they are forbidden to believe.

Science is not sacrosanct. The mere fact that it exists, is admired, has results is not sufficient for making it a measure of excellence. Modern science arose from global objections against earlier views and rationalism itself, the idea that there are general rules and standards for conducting our affairs, affairs of knowledge included, arose from global objections to common sense.

All true knowledge contradicts common sense.

I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to get to really know something. How careful you have to be about checking your experiments. How easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself. I know what it means to know something.

There are two modes of knowledge: through argument and through experience. Argument brings conclusions and compels us to concede them, but it does not cause certainty nor remove doubts that the mind may rest in truth, unless this is provided by experience.

To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century.