Daniel Dennett Quotes

101 quotes in 1657 categories

• What you can imagine depends on what you know. Philosophers who know only philosophy consign themselves to a janitorial role in the great enterprises of…
• We need to let our children grow up to face the world armed with knowledge, with much more knowledge than we ourselves had at their…
• Not a single one of the cells that compose you knows who you are, or cares.
• Imagination is cheap as long as you don't have to worry about the details.
• Philosophers' Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.
• To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution…
• If nobody cares, then it doesn't matter what happens to flowers.
• Some philosophers can't bear to say simple things, like "Suppose a dog bites a man." They feel obliged instead to say, "Suppose a dog d…
• If I know better than you know what I am up to, it is only because I spend more time with myself than you do.
• There may be things that are completely unknowable to us, so we must be careful not to treat the limits of our knowledge as sure…
• You can't get through seminary and come out believing in God!
• I don't think there is any religious revival. I think what we are hearing, the furor, is merely the hysterical response of the churches the…
• I even agree that the concept of god helps some people lead better lives. That does happen. Don't ever forget it. I just think there…
• It's a no win situation. It's a mug's game. The religions have contrived to make it impossible to disagree with them critically without being rude.…
• Reasons for declaring belief is not are not the same as reasons for believing in god.
• Religion is defined as social systems whose participants avow a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought.
• The best thing about saying thank goodness in place of thank God this that here really are lots of ways of repaying your debt of…
• The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight - that God…
• We have had plenty of atheist presidents; they just wouldn't admit it.
• Most people in the West who say they believe in God actually believe in belief in God.

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