Browse Quotes

The problem of political philosophy is the problem of the best regime.

Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.

Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.

Among the many benefits that accrue from the study of history, this is one of the most important, that it teaches us how to live.

To resist the magistrate is to resist God.

Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen.

Truth is not a property of statements, but of the consensus that can be reached among participants in a rational discourse.

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought.

I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Luxury is therefore absolutely necessary in monarchies; as it is also in despotic states, but not in republics.

The hippocampus is not the repository of memory itself, but rather a critical structure for the consolidation of new memories.

I sometimes think that the only function of the brain is to keep the body from being too stupid.

Neurons that fire together wire together.

Categories are not arbitrary collections of features; they are structured in terms of prototypes.

The great challenge for neuroscience is to understand how the brain, a physical organ, gives rise to the mind, our subjective experience.

We are not thinking machines that feel; rather, we are feeling machines that think.

The brain is a three-pound mass of jelly that can contemplate the cosmos.

The history of science is replete with cases where our common-sense ontology has been overthrown by a more powerful and accurate scientific theory.

The brain is not a computer. It's a biological organ, and it's much more complicated than any computer we've ever built.