Wisdom Quotes

"Only death is certain; everything else is a matter of degree."

"I think that one should not speak unless one has something to say."

"The task of philosophy is to make the obvious seem strange."

"We must abandon the search for a pure, description-free foundation for knowledge."

"The distinction between analyticity and syntheticity is not as clear as logicians once thought."

"Understanding requires not just analysis, but sympathy with actual usage."

"Presuppositions underlie all our speech and thought in ways we seldom notice."

"We are not, in the end, transcendent observers of the world, but participants in it."

"Philosophical skepticism often rests on a misconception about what counts as knowledge."

"Language embodies a kind of implicit wisdom about human nature and the world."

"We should not seek escape from our human conceptual scheme, but rather understand it better."

"We understand persons through a holistic grasp of their behavior and intentions, not through reductive analysis."

"Our understanding of causation is shaped by our practical interests and concerns."

"We cannot step outside our framework of ordinary concepts to evaluate it from a neutral standpoint."

"We must distinguish between the logical role of a concept and its metaphysical implications."

"Convention plays a larger role in our conceptual scheme than rationalists typically acknowledge."

"We should not assume that every significant question has a determinate answer."

"Our ordinary concepts, though sometimes vague, are not thereby deficient."

"The attempt to isolate thought from bodily expression distorts our understanding of both."

"We inherit a conceptual framework shaped by centuries of human practice and reflection."

"Conscience and common sense coincide only in the rare individual."

"We cannot afford to live with truths we do not understand."

"Common sense is not so common."

"To understand virtue, one must understand what it means to act well in concrete circumstances."

"To act is to exercise practical wisdom, which cannot be reduced to rules."

"To understand human beings, we must examine how they actually live and speak."

"We have forgotten that virtue is a habit, not a theory."

"We must learn to think practically, not merely theoretically, about how to live."

"To know the good is inseparable from desiring it and acting upon it."

"The philosophical tradition offers us resources for thinking more clearly about life."