Bernard Williams Quotes

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Bernard Williams

Profession : Philosopher

Birth : September 21, 1929

Women have a favorite room, men a favorite chair.

Bernard Williams

If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance.

Bernard Williams

There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.

Bernard Williams

The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.

Bernard Williams

What a strange world this would be if we all had the same sense of humor.

Bernard Williams

The people I really do dislike are the morally unimaginative kind of evolutionary reductionists who, in the name of science, think they can explain everything in terms of our early hominid ancestors or our genes, with their combination of high-handed tone and disregard for history. Such reductive speculation encourages a really empty scientism.

Bernard Williams

There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.

Bernard Williams

Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire.

Bernard Williams

People who say, 'Let the chips fall where they may,' usually figure they will not be hit by a chip.

Bernard Williams

Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.

Bernard Williams

I like the word 'indolence'. It makes my laziness seem classy.

Bernard Williams

We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory.

Bernard Williams

'Humanity' is a name not merely for a species but also for a quality.

Bernard Williams

If there's one theme in all my work, it's about authenticity and self-expression. It's the idea that some things are, in some real sense, really you - or express what you and others aren't.

Bernard Williams

A friend is a lot of things, but a critic isn't.

Bernard Williams

We grow a little every time we do not take advantage of somebody's weakness.

Bernard Williams

People have been predicting the death of philosophy since the 17th century. When I was a student, people were saying, 'We're in the last days of philosophy.' Then we were told in the '60s it would be replaced by sociology, then by literary criticism.

Bernard Williams

An extravagance is something that your spirit thinks is a necessity.

Bernard Williams

Philosophy is altogether less pure now. It's been impurified by science and social science and history.

Bernard Williams

Disagreement does not necessarily have to be overcome. It may remain an important and constitutive feature of our relations to others and also be seen as something that is merely to be expected in the light of the best explanations we have of how such disagreement arises.

Bernard Williams