“Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial—notoriously less stable and less inherent than the nature of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.” — Harry G. Frankfurt Copy Share Image
“We may seek to distance ourselves from bullshit, but we are more likely to turn away from it with an impatient or irritated shrug… — Harry G. Frankfurt Copy Share Image
“Morality can provide at most only a severely limited and insufficient answer to the question of how a person should live.” — Harry G. Frankfurt Copy Share Image
“Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial—notoriously less stable and less inherent than the nature of other things. And insofar as this is the case,… — Harry G. Frankfurt Copy Share Image
“That is why she cannot be regarded as lying; for she does not presume that she knows the truth, and therefore she cannot be deliberately promulgating a proposition that she presumes to be false: Her statement is grounded neither in a belief that it is true, not, as a lie must be, in a belief that it is not true.… — Harry G. Frankfurt Copy Share
“After all, every use of language without exception has some, if not all, of the characteristic features of lies.” — Harry G. Frankfurt Copy Share Image
“The notion of carefully wrought bullshit involves, then, a certain inner strain. Thoughtful attention to detail requires discipline and objectivity. It entails accepting standards… — Harry G. Frankfurt Copy Share Image
“The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to… — Harry G. Frankfurt Copy Share Image
“When we characterize talk as hot air, we mean that what comes out of the speaker’s mouth is only that. It is mere vapor.… — Harry G. Frankfurt Copy Share Image
“However, it must not be assumed that bullshit always and necessarily has pretentiousness as its motive.” — Harry G. Frankfurt Copy Share Image
