Thomas Nagel Quotes

A theory of motivation is defective if it renders intelligible behaviour which is not intelligible.

Thomas Nagel

• motivation
• Behaviour
• Intelligible

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• The only thing worse than an active conscience is one that's retroactive.

  

  Harold Coffin
  • Conscience
  • Active
  • Worse

• From my own internal fanboy perspective, there's nothing that I hate more than seeing a three minute trailer for a movie where I feel like it's shown me the entire movie.

  

  Damon Lindelof
  • Movie
  • Hate
  • Feel

• I went into acting as psychotherapy, and it's still a work in progress.

  

  Ed Asner
  • Work
  • Progress
  • Acting

• I'm not even kind of a lesbian.

  

  Oprah Winfrey
  • Kind
  • Lesbian
  • Even

• If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama.

  

  Irving Babbitt
  • Man
  • Democracy
  • saw

• Like I said, I'm just trying to continue to improve and get better.

  

  Karrie Webb
  • Trying
  • Better
  • Said

• But if I keep my core and back strong, the scoliosis doesn't really bother me.

  

  Usain Bolt
  • Strong
  • Me
  • Bother

• As a young boy, scouting gave me a confidence and camaraderie that is hard to find in modern life.

  

  Bear Grylls
  • Life
  • Me
  • Confidence

• I have done the company lifestyle for 16 years, and ballet has changed.

  

  Carla Korbes
  • Done
  • Company
  • Ballet

• Twitter is the marriage of full-tilt narcissism and full-tilt voyeurism that has finally collided in 140 words.

  

  Adam Goldberg
  • Words
  • Marriage
  • Twitter

• Accomplishment, the feeling of absorption in the flow, of mastery for its own sake, of knowing how to do this thing, is what keeps all of us doing what we do, if we like what we do at all.

  

  Adam Gopnik
  • Feeling
  • Accomplishment

• A friend of mine told me a bunch of stuff on Buddhism and about Avicii being the lowest level of Buddhist hell, and it just sort of got stuck in my head. Later on when I went to setup a MySpace, I tried a bunch of names and they were all taken so I just kind of ended up with Avicii and then I got really attached to it.

  

  Avicii
  • Up
  • Friend
  • Taken

• You should never doubt yourself because you never, ever know what's around the corner.

  

  Kellie Pickler
  • Doubt

• The West is not producing enough engineers.

  

  Azim Premji

• First create jobs, and then provide skills to people.

  

  Kumar Mangalam Birla
  • People

• You have to be very careful. If you over-commercialize a social mission, it completely loses its soul.

  

  Daniel Lubetzky
  • Soul

• So much of the world's suffering results from the sinful action or inaction of ourselves and others. For example, people look at a famine and wonder where God is, but the world produces enough food for each person to have 3,000 calories a day. It's our own irresponsibility and self-centeredness that prevents people from getting fed.

  

  Lee Strobel
  • People
  • World
  • God

• When people silo themselves by belief, only affiliating with like-minded media organizations and people, we lose the opportunity for genuine conversation, much less persuasion.

  

  Daniel Levitin
  • People
  • Opportunity

• A lot of people, to attack an outspoken atheist, one of the things they'll do is say, 'You are as bad as the fundamentalist Christians.' And my answer is always, 'I hope so.'

  

  Penn Jillette
  • People
  • Bad
  • Hope

• Do you suppose it's true, that St. Patrick was a parselmouth, and his muggle friends never knew?

  

  Dave Beard
  • Suppose
  • Parselmouth
  • Muggle

• Money is not everything. My ambition was football itself, not the money I'd make from it. If that brings me and my family a more comfortable lifestyle, then that's fine. But I don't spend my time between games and training sessions thinking about figures.

  

  Alessandro Del Piero
  • Time
  • Thinking
  • Family

• Conservatives are more religious than liberals--although there is no evidence that they're nicer people because of it.

  

  Andy Rooney
  • People
  • Religious
  • Evidence

• My transformation represents more than what is just skin deep; it represents my motivation, drive, and willingness to constantly improve.

  

  Jinder Mahal
  • Deep
  • motivation
  • Transformation

• A theory of motivation is defective if it renders intelligible behaviour which is not intelligible.

  

  Thomas Nagel
  • motivation
  • Behaviour
  • Intelligible