A Quote by Alfred North Whitehead
Philosophy asks the simple question: What is it all about?
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On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' And Vanity comes along and asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But Conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?'
On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right? There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.
When someone asks 'what's the use of philosophy?' the reply must be aggressive, since the question tries to be ironic and caustic. Philosophy does not serve the State or the Church, who have other concerns. It serves no established power.
My philosophy was simple. I was trying to score when I got the football in my hand. There was no question about that.
Science only answers the question, How does it work? Or at most, What's there? Science asks what and how, philosophy asks why, myth and religion ask who. Who's in charge here? Who's the author? That's what we really long to know.
Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.
In my opinion there are two basic questions that any writer tries to answer. "What is?" is the question non-fiction asks. "What if?" is the question fiction asks. That's the question I'm more interested in.
My father said, Politics asks the question: Is it expedient? Vanity asks: Is it popular? But conscience asks: Is it right?
Maybe I was unpopular a bit because I was a teacher's pet. But even the teachers complained about me. They would say to my parents, 'For every one question any pupil asks, Walter asks 10.'
Good historians, I suspect, whether they think about it or not, have the future in their bones. Besides the question: Why? the historian also asks the question: Whither?
The most evocative thing to me is probably when a writer and a group of performers can collectively put together something compelling that asks the really simple question: 'How do we live?'
Why can’t you ever answer a simple question? (Wulf) Ask me a simple question and you will get a simple answer. (Acheron)
Nobody can refuse a person who comes and asks for a job. Nobody can refuse a poor man when he goes and asks for food. Nobody can stop any Indian if he asks a question of his government. This is what the Congress party and the UPA have done over the last 10 years.
The Q I loathe and despise, the Q every single writer I know loathes and despises, is this one: 'Where,' the reader asks, 'do you get your ideas?' It's a simple question, and my usual response is a kind of helpless, 'I don't know.'
In philosophy it is always good to put a question instead of an answer to a question. For an answer to the philosophical question may easily be unfair; disposing of it by means of another question is not.
Philosophy isn't reading Emmanuel Kant. Philosophy is about thinking hard about what the right thing to do is in a situation and approaching that kind of question in an open-minded and open-hearted way, receptive to a broad range of considerations and interests of other people and other things.
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