Calmness Quote by Charles Babbage

“The history of philosophy is, to a great extent, that of a certain clash of human temperaments…Of whatever temperament a philosopher is, he tries,…

— William James

A philosopher ... is not fairly judged by his eccentricities, nor by the frailties to which he is liable; still less should his philosophy…

— John Grier Hibben

The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful.

— A.J. Ayer

The highest compliment one can give a writer is not to say that one wholeheartedly agrees with his observations, but that he provoked -…

— Glenn Greenwald

The animadversions of critics are commonly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply

— Samuel Johnson

A philosopher is a fool who torments himself while he is alive, to be talked of after he is dead.

— Jean le Rond d'Alembert

These critics organize and practice in my case a sort of obsessive personality cult which philosophers should know how to question and above all,…

— Jacques Derrida

The proof that a philosopher does not know what he is talking about is apt to sadden his followers before it reacts on himself.

— Henry Adams

Philosophers are capable of almost endless enjoyment of mutual misunderstanding.

— Lyman Bryson

A critic is never too severe when he only detects the faults of an author. But he is worse than too severe when, in…

— Walter Savage Landor

Although I felt I was quite good at criticising a philosophical position, I was not very good at defending and making a case for…

— Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

The critic ... should be not merely a poet, not merely a philosopher, not merely an observer, but tempered of all three.

— Margaret Fuller