Nigel Warburton Quotes

As soon as you start to doubt your own existence, the act of doubting proves that you exist as a thinking thing. This

Anyone who silences someone else because they believe the other person’s opinion is false assumes infallibility. They must be absolutely certain that they are correct on the matter.

Machiavelli stresses that it's better as a leader to be feared than to be loved. Ideally you would be both loved and feared, but that's hard to achieve. If you rely on your people loving you, then you...

The problem as he saw it was not how short our lives are, but rather how badly most of us use what time we have.

Those who do the right thing don't do it simply because of how they feel: the decision has to be based on reason, reason that tells you what your duty is, regardless of how you happen to feel.

إنّ القارئ المثالي: هو القارئُ الناقد، الذي يعتمد المناقشة المستمرة للبراهين المستعملة، والتفكير في براهين مناقضة لها

Wisdom and understanding in the course of human history will only come fully at a late stage, when we're looking back on what has already happened, like someone looking back on the events of a day as...

Instead of looking to increase our pleasure in life, they think, we should try to become better people and do the right thing. That is what makes a life go well.

The best way to eliminate all suffering in the world would be to eliminate all sentient life. If there were no living things capable of feeling pain, then there would be no pain.

Sartre explained what he meant by the anguish of choice through the true story of a student who had come to ask his advice during the war. This young man had to make a very difficult decision. He coul...

Preserving freedom of speech maximizes the chance of truth emerging from its collision with error and half-truth.

Central to Mill’s approach throughout On Liberty is his ‘Harm Principle’, the idea that individual adults should be free to do whatever they wish up to the point where they harm another person in the...

In a civilized society freedom to offend should be protected, but

Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd: I am always about in the Quad.     And that's why the tree     Will continue to be, Since observed by Yours faithfully, God.

Even if I believe my opinion to be true, and am highly confident about its truth, unless it is ‘fully, frequently and fearlessly’ discussed, I will end up holding it as a dead dogma, a formulaic and u...

Everything we perceive takes place in time and space, and every change has a cause. But according to Kant, that is not because of the way reality ultimately is: it is a contribution of our minds. We d...

Minority opinions should not be silenced just because they are held by very few people. Unfashionable ideas have potential value for the whole of humanity, even if only held by one person: If all mank...

The mind shaping reality just is reality. There is nothing beyond it. But this did not mean that reality remained in a fixed state. For Hegel, everything is in a process of change, and that change tak...

Without free expression humankind may be robbed of ideas that would otherwise have contributed to its development. Preserving freedom of speech maximizes the chance of truth emerging from its collisio...

If we silence those who utter falsehoods, we run the risk of becoming dogmatic, of believing without understanding, or feeling passionate about the evidence supporting our beliefs. We also run the ris...