For me, philosophy is an activity of thought that is common to human beings. Human beings at their best. — Simon Critchley Activity Copy Share Image
The philosopher is someone who doesn't know, but who wants to find out. — Simon Critchley Know Copy Share Image
It's complicated. On the one hand we're killer apes, and on the other hand we have this metaphysical longing. — Simon Critchley Apes Copy Share Image
It is so ridiculous to limit oneself to one version of the truth. — Simon Critchley Limits Copy Share Image
Humour is human. Why? Well, because the Philosopher, Aristotle, says so. — Simon Critchley Comedy Copy Share Image
The current situation with regard to theory is odd and maybe defined by a paradox. — Simon Critchley Current situation Copy Share Image
That is to say, politics is essentially about the management of fear, an economy of fear, continually adjusting the level of fear… — Simon Critchley Adjusting Copy Share Image
We might even define the human as a dynamic process produced by a series of identifications and misidentifications with animality. — Simon Critchley Humans Copy Share Image
The only answer to the question of the meaning of life has to begin from the fact of our human finitude, of… — Simon Critchley Answers Copy Share Image
We must believe, but we can't believe. Perhaps this is the tragedy that some of us see in Obama: a change we… — Simon Critchley Believe Copy Share Image
Any philosophical and theoretical assurance that laughter is unique to the human being becomes somewhat unsure when one turns to the anthropological… — Simon Critchley Assurance Copy Share Image
Also, rights are not things that are given in the heavens. Rather, they are levers for political articulations, which enables what was… — Simon Critchley Articulation Copy Share Image
Philosophy for me is essentially atheistic. Now that's an anxious atheism. It's an atheism that is anxious because it inhabits questions that… — Simon Critchley Anxious Copy Share Image
There are lots of stories about how philosophy begins. Some people claim it begins in wonder; some people claim it begins in… — Simon Critchley Begins Copy Share Image
I am opposing it with an idea of the history of philosophy as a history of philosophers, that is, a history of… — Simon Critchley Clean Copy Share Image
I've always been very keen on Pascal, and what I'm most keen on in Pascal is his emphasis upon human wretchedness. He… — Simon Critchley Anxiety Copy Share Image
The other side of my work is political disappointment - the realization that we are living in an unjust world. "Blood is… — Simon Critchley Able Copy Share Image
Obama dreams of a society without power relations, without the agonism that constitutes political life. Against such a position one might assert… — Simon Critchley Assertion Copy Share Image
Philosophy is the art of dying.Philosophy is an activity that has always been concerned with how one seizes hold of one's mortality,… — Simon Critchley Activity Copy Share Image
I think governments are quietly terrified. There's massive unemployment, a recession they don't know how to deal with, and the measures they've… — Simon Critchley Deals Copy Share Image
When the animal becomes human, the effect is pleasingly benign and we laugh outloud, "Okay come clean now. This isn't really about… — Simon Critchley Animal Copy Share Image
For authoritarians such as Lenin and Žižek, the dichotomy in politics is state power or no power, but I refuse to concede… — Simon Critchley Creation Copy Share Image
Melancholia for Freud is the relationship that the subject takes up with respect to itself from the position of what he calls… — Simon Critchley Anorexics Copy Share Image
We live in a world that is dominated by science. And that's not a bad thing - not at all. But one… — Simon Critchley Accepting Copy Share Image
“In a seminar at New York University in 1980, Foucault is reported to have said that the difference between late antiquity and… — Simon Critchley Christian Copy Share Image
There's a floating distraction in the contemporary world, life at a distance enabled by technology. I want people to commit at the… — Simon Critchley Able Copy Share Image
Philosophy, for me, is a way of relearning to look at the world, a world that is familiar to us, that we… — Simon Critchley Familiar Copy Share Image
Now, if laughter is proper to the human being, then the human being who does not laugh invites the charge of inhumanity,… — Simon Critchley Comedy Copy Share Image
I guess what happens to a lot of people as they get older is that they get more conservative, but with me,… — Simon Critchley Cases Copy Share Image
The influence of being in New York, made me realize a lot of the ethical and political ideas I want to push… — Simon Critchley Anarchist Copy Share Image
Peace is nothing more than the regulation of the psycho-political economy of awe and reverential fear, of using the threat of terror… — Simon Critchley Awe Copy Share Image
Shore up the mean with reverence and terror. But never banish terror from the gates of the state. The stronger the fear,… — Simon Critchley Cities Copy Share Image
In relation to the question of hope, I think the only hope we have is hope against hope. We hope for a… — Simon Critchley Better world Copy Share Image
So, I am a b*stard, and the English are b*stards. But the really bad news is that you are too. My vision… — Simon Critchley Bad news Copy Share Image
Just to say "Well, God is dead" in one breath is to say, in another, that nothing means anything. This is the… — Simon Critchley Affirmation Copy Share Image
I think that when people are at their best, when they are thinking, reflecting, cogitating, then they are doing philosophy. So I… — Simon Critchley Academic Copy Share Image
Philosophy teaches us to look at the world again. It brings out at a theoretical level what all plain, common, ordinary people,… — Simon Critchley Common Copy Share Image
My favourite writer is Beckett and I keep going back to wallow in his work like a deep pool of dark humour… — Simon Critchley Beckett Copy Share Image
