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

— Thomas Nagel The View From Nowhere (1986)

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Philosophy

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)

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)

If you think about it, the inside of your own mind is the only thing you can be sure of.

What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy (1987)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

Every morning
I shall concern myself anew about the boundary
Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No
And pressing forward honor reality.

Martin Buber Power and Love (1926)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

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.