Philosophy Bits

“When someone utters the word “iron” or “silver,” don’t we all think of the same thing? … But what happens when we say “just” or “good”? Doesn’t each one of us go in a different direction? Don’t we differ with one another and even with ourselves?”

“In science there are many matters about which people are agreed; in philosophy there are none.”

“Every man I meet is in some way my superior; and in that I can learn of him.”

Your emotions are strong and they push you around in myriad ways. It's natural to have difficulty seeing what is real or true when this happens. Sometimes you have no reason why you feel a particular way. Something happened that brought a powerful feeling to the surface but you can't understand what the emotion is or why it's so intense.

“Do what nature demands. Get a move on — if you have it in you — and don’t worry whether anyone will give you credit for it. And don’t go expecting Plato’s Republic; be satisfied with even the smallest progress, and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant.”

“Warhol himself was never anything but a kind of hologram. Famous people came to the Factory to hover around him without being able to get anything from him, but they tried to pass through him as you might with a filter or a camera lens, which is what he had in effect become.”

“My spirit is too weak — mortality weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep.”

There are moments when the pressures of life become too much to bear and I need to take a break. I need to step out of the chaos of the world and find some calm and quiet, if only to give my senses an opportunity for respite. Sometimes it's not just my senses that need relief but my entire body that is in need of care.

“It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident anymore, not its inner life, not its relation to the world, not even its right to exist.”

“A person of sharp observation and sound judgment rules over objects and keeps objects from ruling him.”

“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy, a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History, and, even, with the European tradition.”