Thomas Nagel Quotes
What we take ourselves to be doing when we think about what is the case or how we should act is something that cannot be reconciled with a reductive naturalism, for reasons distinct from those that entail the irreducibility of consciousness. It is not merely the subjectivity of thought but its capacity to transcend subjectivity and to discover what is objectively the case that presents a problem....Thought and reasoning are correct or incorrect in virtue of something independent of the thinker's beliefs, and even independent of the community of thinkers to which he belongs.
Quotes to Explore
-
Let there be a door to thy mouth, that it may be shut when need arises, and let it be carefully barred, that none may rouse thy voice to anger, and thou pay back abuse with abuse.
-
I actually signed on to do 'On the Road' before we started on 'Tron,' but we were in flux for a while, just sort of playing the waiting game, trying to get the right budget and the right cast.
-
With a film, you just don't have time to build sympathy for the character. But I think we're moving away from that in TV. With TV, you have a little more leeway to allow them to rise and fall and rise again and be much more complicated beings.
-
The commonest error made in relation to poetry is that it consists simply in verse-making. Many confound the casket of meter and rhyme with the jewel of thought which it encloses, and, perhaps, in some instances, after close investigation, they have found the casket empty and turned away with feelings of disappointment and disgust.
-
I do have, like, a regular childhood. I mean, I'm treated the same.
-
The most important thing that I've figured out is that things work out the way they're supposed to. We try to have all this control and fashion things the way we want, but everything happens for a reason, and in the end it works out the way it's supposed to.
-
It's really fun to see a movie that you've heard about that's really good.
-
In our personal lives, we have a lot of businesses going on. I have a profession, I'm a father, a spouse, a good member of my community. How much of my time and energy can I allocate to each of those things? What I allocate becomes the strategy I have for my family, and everything else.
-
I used to not watch what I ate. I would just kind of eat whatever.
-
It's always beautiful to sing with other great voices. I like voices in general. It's a big privilege to have great singers next to me.
-
I grew up on Loretta Lynn and Dusty Springfield. I remember lying about it; it wasn't cool to listen to country when I was 12.
-
I don't hate people who colour-blind cast, but I hate people who colour-blind cast and pretend that they're not, who pretend that these bodies on stage don't actually carry specific meaning.
-
I'm still pulled over... We were nominated for two Oscars for 'Monster's Ball,' and I almost didn't make the Oscars because I got pulled over in Beverly Hills.
-
I collect cars and bikes. One of my most special rides is a black 1930s Cadillac V16, and then I've got a few West Coast choppers.
-
I think the scientific goals and the technical challenges were the two things that equally motivated me.
-
I also had a mistaken attitude towards certain comrades.
-
A few of the sublimest geniuses of Rome and Athens had some faint discoveries of the spiritual nature of the human soul, and formed some probable conjectures, that man was designed for a future state of existence.
-
Whenever you do a film for the wrong reasons, it may or it may not pan out. Sometimes people do it because it is a good move or the right move. I don't know; maybe one day I will do a film for the wrong reasons, and it will work for me.
-
Science fiction was rocket-mad for about 40 years until aerospace hit a brick wall about 1970. I would not write off space colonisation or exploration completely, but we are profoundly ill adapted for going boldly into outer space.
-
Does assimilation mean that they never came up against naked prejudice? Does it mean that you understood where the limits of your social world were and you stuck to them?
-
I don't think the money people in Hollywood have ever thought I was normal, but I am dedicated to my work and that's what counts.
-
The true gardener then brushes over the ground with slow and gentle hand, to liberate a space for breath round some favorites; but he is not thinking about destruction except incidentally. It is only the amateur like myself who becomes obsessed and rejoices with a sadistic pleasure in weeds that are big and bad enough to pull, and at last, almost forgetting the flowers altogether, turns into a Reformer.
-
What we take ourselves to be doing when we think about what is the case or how we should act is something that cannot be reconciled with a reductive naturalism, for reasons distinct from those that entail the irreducibility of consciousness. It is not merely the subjectivity of thought but its capacity to transcend subjectivity and to discover what is objectively the case that presents a problem....Thought and reasoning are correct or incorrect in virtue of something independent of the thinker's beliefs, and even independent of the community of thinkers to which he belongs.
