Al Goldstein Quotes

Philosophy addresses, in a systematic and progress-making way, questions of deep concern to everyone.

It's something that's very often said that philosophy, as opposed to science, never makes any progress.

I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household and I wouldn't say so much it's informed my views, but it's informed my interest, so I think as a child I was often very baffled by knowledge claims.

If we look at our attitudes consistently and work out the logical implications we're on the road to moral progress, moral understanding.

We may not need God to tell us where the world came from, but we need God to be able to live moral lives and for there to be morality in the first place.

We need science. We need empirical evidence. We can't just use mathematical reasoning to deduce the nature of the world.

Those who share my heroes are, in the deepest sense, of my own kind.

What one tries to force into a child against its own nature will never come to good.

A child's natural form of behavior is play, and in our aim to educate, play should be honored and preserved for as long past childhood as can be.

The sum and substance of education is the right training that effectually leads the soul of the child at play on to the love of the calling in its adult life.

And what is it, according to Plato, that philosophy is supposed to do? Nothing less than to render violence to our sense of ourselves and our world, our sense of ourselves in the world.

Paraphrasing Plato's Republic: "Only people who have allowed themselves to be reformed by reality have it in themselves to reform their polis for the better."

If you don't exert yourself, or if your exertions don't amount to much of anything, then you might as well not have bothered to have shown up for your existence at all.

Less money spent on billboards that just make us feel good about ourselves and more on soup kitchens and organized visits to the sick and dying.

Plato's concern is not just an intellectual issue, but it is knitted with emotional life as well.

As Plato: What is play and delightful one kind of child is coercion and torture for another, and will not take no matter how much coercion is applied.

And what is it, according to Plato, that philosophy is supposed to do? Nothing less than to render violence to our sense of ourselves and our world, our sense of ourselves in the world. (p. 40)

Paraphrasing Plato's Republic: "Only people who have allowed themselves to be reformed by reality have it in themselves to reform their polis for the better.

Kleos is sometimes translated as "acoustic renown" the spreading renown you get from people talking about your exploits. It's a bit like having a large Twitter following.

The truth, my friend, is an awesome thing, to be handled with wisdom and with courage denied to ordinary people. Most of us must make do with illusions. Or else -- or else we could not endure.

What if the Devil doesn't know he's the Devil?

Conclusions that philosophers first establish by way of torturous reasoning have a way, over time, of leaking into shared knowledge.

Plato worries our thinking might become too reflexive and comfortable with itself.

Issues are like tissues. You pull one out and another appears!

He hadn’t altogether gotten it himself until this moment of seeing straight through to the soul of her.

It’s a tiresome proposition, having to take up the work of the Enlightenment all over again, but it’s happened on your watch.

leave me. And it was a great sense of relief. The

Guilt is a manifestation of condemnation or aversion towards oneself, which does not understand the changing transformative quality of mind.'Seeking the Heart of Wisdom

It’s not enough to love your product. You have to love your customers, too, every single one—those who complain the most are the ones who control the keys to your survival.

People. Products. Profits. In that order.

The primary obligation of any prisoner is to escape. Whether that means actually leaving or simply figuring out a way to handle things so you don't go crazy is up to you.

Courage in the final analysis is nothing but an affirmative answer to the shocks of existence.

One of the primary reasons why the human brain has evolved to look so far into the future is so that we can take actions in the present that will bring us to a better future rather than a worse one.