Some philosophers can’t bear to say simple things, like “Suppose a dog bites a man.” They feel obliged instead to say, “Suppose a dog d bites a man m at time t,” thereby demonstrating their unshakable commitment to logical rigor, even though they don’t go on to manipulate any formulae involving d, m, and t.

— Daniel C. Dennett, Freedom Evolves

…cannot invent mathematical truths, nor the beauty of a work of art, nor the imperatives of the moral life; and when I ‘fall’ in love, as the phrase so accurately describes it, I cannot choose deliberately to do this. The transcendence of values is in this sense patently real.

— Luc Ferry, A Brief History of Thought

Happiness isn’t the reward for a life well-lived… … it’s the mechanism used to control our behaviour.

— Paul Kwatz, Conscious Robots

…choosing a more powerful language probably decreases the size of the team you need, because (a) if you use a more powerful language, you probably won’t need as many hackers, and (b) hackers who work in more advanced languages are likely to be smarter.

— Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters

Ask a physicist how an atom bomb works, or why time slows down as you approach the speed of light, and she’ll tell you, complete with handwavings and scribbled diagrams. Ask a historian why Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo and you’ll end up learning something. But ask an academic philosopher about the meaning of life and you’re quite likely to just get a grumpy remark about it being a badly-formed question.

— Anja Publications, Philosophy Now