“ Richard Nixon had made a fatal error in ignoring the politico-meteorological dimension when he announced the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia on April 30, 1970. The invasion of Laos, on the… Rebecca Goldstein
“ Everybody makes excuses for themselves they wouldn't be prepared to make for other people. Rebecca Goldstein
“ I)n order to refute a conclusion, you have to put forth the best possible argument for it. (p. 158) Rebecca Goldstein
“ W)hat is remarkable about the Greeks--even pre-philosophically--is that despite the salience of religious rituals in their lives, when it came to the question of what it is that makes an individual hu… Rebecca Goldstein
“ I have a Greek-American friend who named her daughter Nike and is often asked why she chose to name her offspring after a sneaker. Rebecca Goldstein
“ When you didn't force yourself to think in formal reconstructions, when you didn't catch these moments of ravishments under the lens of premises and conclusions, when you didn't impale them and label… Rebecca Goldstein
“ The good polis is made by the good person, his moral character intact, and the good polis, in turn, helps turn out good persons, their moral character intact. Rebecca Goldstein
“ As Plato:) There is nothing superstitious about forcing bad consequences for the hubris of paternalistic utopianism. Humanity should never be frozen into a vision of the best. A creative society must… Rebecca Goldstein
“ For the ancient Greeks, who lacked our social media, the only way to achieve mass duplication of the details of one's life in the apprehension of others was to do something wondrously worth the tellin… Rebecca Goldstein
“ When we call a philosopher distinguished, we are not saying that she is worthy and not saying that she is recognized, but we are saying that she occupies the intersection of both – that she is recogni… Rebecca Goldstein
“ We each carry our own designated end within us, our very own death ripening at its own rate inside of us. There are insignificant people who are harboring unawares the grandeur of large deaths. We car… Rebecca Goldstein
“ 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. Rebecca Goldstein
“ It has been claimed that Plato was an egalitarian; it has been claimed that he was a totalitarian. It has been claimed that he was the utopian, proposing a universal blueprint for the ideal state; it… Rebecca Goldstein
“ Our failures in charity are chained to a narrowed vision of the world that makes too much of the differences between us, and this is our enslavement. Rebecca Goldstein
“ No validation of our rationality - of our very sanity - can be accomplished using our rationality itself. How can a person operating within a system of beliefs, including beliefs about beliefs, get ou… Rebecca Goldstein
“ Plato conceived of philosophy as necessarily gregarious rather than solitary. The exposure of presumptions is best done in company, the more argumentative the better. This is why discussion around the… Rebecca Goldstein
“ Plato worries our thinking might become too reflexive and comfortable with itself. Rebecca Goldstein
“ In a field like philosophy, where understanding involves not so much the reception of knowledge but rather a transformation of the receiver itself, so that the receiver, which is to say the student, c… Rebecca Goldstein
