Skip to content

Even if I could by gradual degrees be transformed into a bat, nothing in my present constitution enables me to imagine what the experiences of such a future stage of myself thus metamorphosed would be like. The best evidence would come from the experience of bats, if we only knew what they were like.

— Thomas Nagel What is it like to be a bat? (1974)

Another quote →

More quotes by Thomas Nagel

Leading a human life is a full-time occupation, to which everyone devotes decades of intense concern.

Mortal Questions (1979)

Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up.

The View From Nowhere (1986)

Consciousness is what makes the mind–body problem really intractable.

What is it like to be a bat? (1974)

I should not really object to dying if it were not followed by death.

Mortal Questions (1979)

Everyone is entitled to commit murder in the imagination once in a while, not to mention lesser infractions.

Concealment and Exposure and Other Essays (1998)

All Thomas Nagel quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Nagel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.