Bernard Williams Quotes

... while transparency is a natural associate of liberalism, it falls short of implying rationalism. It is one aspiration, that social and ethical relations should not essentially rest on ignorance and misunderstanding of what they are, and quite another that all the beliefs and principles involved in them should be explicitly stated. That these are two different things is obvious with personal relations, where to hope that they do not rest on deceit and error is merely decent, but to think that their basis can be made totally explicit is idiocy. ~ Bernard Williams

Utilitarians are often immensely conscientious people, who work for humanity and give up meat for the sake of the animals. They think this is what they morally ought to do and feel guilty if they do not live up to their own standard. They do not, and perhaps could not, ask: How useful is it that I think and feel like this? ~ Bernard Williams

A half-truth is usually less than half of that. ~ Bernard Williams

An extravagance is something that your spirit thinks is a necessity. ~ Bernard Williams

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

So far I have not said much about objectivity, though earlier chapters have had a good deal to do with it. If an Archimedean point could be found and practical reason, or human interests, could be shown to involve a determinate ethical outlook, then ethical thought would be objective, in the sense that it would have been given an objective foundation. Those are possibilities - or they might have turned out to be possibilities - within the perspective of practical reason. Very often, however, discussions of objectivity come into moral philosophy from a different starting point, from an interest in comparing ethical beliefs with knowledge and claims to truth of other kinds, for instance with scientific beliefs. Here a rather different conception of objectivity is involved. It is naturally associated with such questions as what can make ethical beliefs true, and whether there is any ethical knowledge. It is in this field of comparisons that various distinctions between fact and value are located. ~ Bernard Williams

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

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

The trouble with religious morality comes not from morality's being inescapably pure, but from religion's being incurably unintelligible. ~ Bernard Williams

Few things are as democratic as a snowstorm. ~ Bernard Williams

The only serious enterprise is living. ~ Bernard Williams

Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit. ~ Bernard Williams

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

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

That an action would be cowardly is not often found by an agent to be a consideration in its favor, but it could be, and in a counterethical way, ministering to a masochism of shame. ~ Bernard Williams

This is a major, wide-ranging, and comprehensive book. A philosophical investigation that is also a literary and historical study, Truth and Truthfulness asks how and why we have come to think of accuracy, sincerity, and authenticity as virtues. Bernard Williams' account of their emergence is as detailed and imaginative as his defense of their importance is spirited and provocative. Williams asks hard questions, and gives them straightforward and controversial answers. His book does not simply describe and advocate these virtues of truthfulness; it manifests them. ~ Alexander Nehamas

Sooner or later we all quote our mothers. ~ Bernard Williams

Unsolicited advice is the junk mail of life. ~ Bernard Williams

Bernard Williams has been a distinctive presence on the intellectual scene for more than three decades ... His writings do not offer the dubious exhilaration of grand philosophical theory, in which messy reality is tamed and caged, but the thrill of seeing pretension punctured by a kind of high-voltage common sense (backed up by impressive erudition) ... There is no one in philosophy quite like him. ~ Colin McGinn

This is the end of the day, but soon there will be a new day. ~ Bernard Williams

If we try and fail, we have temporary disappointments. But if we do not try at all, we have permanent regrets. ~ Bernard Williams

Women have a favorite room, men a favorite chair. ~ Bernard Williams

Few things move as quietly as the future. ~ Bernard Williams

Books had instant replay long before televised sports. ~ Bernard Williams

The average man will bristle if you say his father was dishonest, but he will brag a little if he discovers that his great-grandfather was a Pirate. ~ Bernard Williams

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

What will the professor's justification do, when they break down the door, smash his spectacles, take him away? ~ Bernard Williams

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

Tranquility is like quicksilver. The harder you grab for it, the less likely you will grasp it. ~ Bernard Williams

The idea that this end of philosophy - at least, of political philosophy and (I claim) moral philosophy - has close relations with history overlaps with a more ambitious view held by a consistently underestimated Oxford philosopher, R. G. Collingwood. The trouble with Collingwood's kind of commitment is that it requires one to know some history. My two associates in the view I am sketching are Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor. They are both Roman Catholics, though of different sorts. I used to find this a disquieting fact but no longer do so. All three of us, I could say, accept the significant role of Christianity in understanding modern moral consciousness, and adopt respectively the three possible views about how to move in relation to that: backward in it, forward in it, and out of it. In any case, we all assume some historical commitments, they on a more ambitious scale than I, and perhaps there is a rather nervous competition for who writes the most irresponsible history. ~ Bernard Williams

Something tells me that Alex has some demons and I can tell you from experience that those suckers don't go down easy. ~ Mary J. Williams

When I was young, I wanted to be a dramatic writer, a writer of tragedy. Nothing would've pleased me more than if I could have written like Eugene O'Neil or Tennessee Williams. ~ Woody Allen

I'm becoming a professional nomad and enjoying that whole part of my life. ~ Dar Williams

[O]nce you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. - The Skin Horse from The Velveteen Rabbit ~ Margery Williams

To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing ~ Raymond Williams

When you're different you've got two choices. You can stand out or you step back. ~ Niall Williams

Iconic artists are never straight ahead. Michael Jackson loved Elvis and Burt Bacharach, and uniquely blended both of them into what he did. ~ Pharrell Williams

That's the thing about people who love to play devil's advocate!' I shouted. 'There's no emotional involvement in it for you, there's nothing at stake! ~ Candice Carty-Williams

Obviously, I'm suffering from lack of sleep, but it truly is a blessing to be a mother. ~ Bernard Lagat

A man has to have goals - for a day, for a lifetime - and that was mine, to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived. ~ Ted Willams

With film roles, it just has to be a character either I haven't done before, or a role with somebody really interesting or with an interesting person or group of people. ~ Robin Williams

Somoza admitted that he had issued the order to have Sandino murdered after receiving the approval of the American minister. The minister hotly denied any involvement in the plot and and the State department issued a statement disclaiming any part in Sandino's death. ~ Bernard Diederich

Seems like a lot of my generation as a whole is more concerned with being the cool kid; sarcastic, smug, or just all together impenetrable. So anyway, it's not always comfortable to be like, the dorky, happy girl at the party ... but that's me. ~ Hayley Williams

Do you get the feeling with Sarah Palin, in high school, she was voted least likely to write a book and most likely to burn one? ~ Robin Williams

in the words of George Bernard Shaw, marriage inspired by love brings two people together "under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions. ~ Sheena Iyengar

[History is] a tyranny over the souls of the dead - and so the imagination of the living. ~ William Carlos Williams

The business of love is
cruelty which,
by our wills,
we transform
to live together. ~ William Carlos Williams

Would you buy potato chips that listed potato by-product or potato digest as an ingredient ~ Michelle T. Bernard

A girl who would never play in a tournament. She'd been butchered by agents of the Red Rose when they'd been unable to steal her away. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

Our purpose is simple ... To Love To love each other, to love all life and to love our earth. ~ Anthony D. Williams

Time doesn't take away from friendship, nor does separation. ~ Tennessee Williams

You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too. Even mother's milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes. ~ George Bernard Shaw

The abject is evident in the bizarre bodily changes found in films as different as Videodrome (1983) and M Butterfly (1993), both of which focus on mutating or deviant men. Cronenberg's work at this level achieves a rupture of the categories constituting gender difference: as Williams has it, in these films 'mutation signals a more pervasive postmodern gender-fuck at work: women conceive without men (The Brood), and men turn themselves into women'. In the 'fisting' scene in Videodrome, for example, when Harlan thrusts his arm into Renn's vagina slit what is attempting is a form of rape. However, the vagina dissolves his arm, and he is left with a bleeding stump, prefiguring the stump of a hand and dissolved ankle which Stathis Borans is left with at the end of The Fly. In Crash (1996), the complexities of this order of conceptualization are developed further, as the question of the boundaries between the inner and outer, the private and the public, of which the male body has been the focus, finds the automobile a new kind of expression. ~ Mike Grant

The golden age of equal rights in Spain was a myth, and belief in it was a result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy for Islam. The myth was invented by Jews in nineteenth-century Europe as a reproach to Christians. ~ Bernard Lewis

The thing I love about sketch is sometimes it leads you as opposed to you leading it. ~ Harland Williams

No amount of manifest absurdity ... could deter those who wanted to believe from believing. ~ Bernard Levin

What does that mean, 'real'? Amn't I real, you? If you cut me, do I not bleed? If you piss me off, will I not kick you up the arse? ~ Tad Williams

I was always thinking, 'One day I want to be like Bernie Williams.' ~ Carlos Beltran

Storytelling is the oldest form of education. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Laws, religions, creeds, and systems of ethics, instead of making society better than its best unit, make it worse than its average unit, because they are never up to date. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Outside the Weirwall, Jack could hear the thud of bodies colliding and the cries of the wounded. It seemed like a lot of noise. Even given the fact that Ellen was involved.
"Why'd she go out there?" Jack demanded. "Why didn't you stop her?"
Brooks spat on the ground. "Have you ever tried to stop Captain Stephenson from anythin'? ~ Cinda Williams Chima

There's no point regretting things. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Life's too short to worry about things I've said. ~ Robbie Williams

Walking down Seven Sisters Road to the Tube station, in a move that wouldn't be worth Freud's time to dissect, I called Guy. ~ Candice Carty-Williams

Your ego is gushing all over me and getting my favorite shoes dirty. ~ Nicole Williams

You have this idea that you'd better keep working otherwise people will forget. And that was dangerous. ~ Robin Williams

To be a well-rounded person and know what's going on in the world around you, to have a perspective outside of your sport, is important for every athlete. I'm blessed that our parents gave us that. ~ Venus Williams

Why do they put cows over the gates, sir?"
"For the same reason we put images of a tortured man in our churches. Religion. You ask too many questions, Sharpe. ~ Bernard Cornwell

The name's Jude Ryder since you're going to be my wife soon. And I didn't used to do girlfriends, flowers, or dates. And then I met you, and that didn't work for you. So I changed for you and you changed for me too, ~ Nicole Williams

If mouths cold commit the act, his made very hot, passionate love to mine last night. ~ Nicole Williams

The world is a funny paper read backwards. And that way it isn't so funny. ~ Tennessee Williams

Someone once told me that if you respect a person, listen to their opinion. And if you do not respect someone, then do not listen to their opinion. And that works both ways. ~ Maisie Williams

It's just as unpleasant to get more than you bargain for as to get less. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I could have been better. That's my goal now, to be better. ~ Jayson Williams

I think my playing has been orchestral throughout the years, and this is another way of expressing that. But I primarily see it as the ultimate accomplishment of a musician. Composing makes me feel like I've finally gotten all the way up the ladder as a musician. ~ Tony Williams

But she had recently come to think that in such unhappy times
when the odds were so high against personal happiness
to find love was miraculous, and to fulfill it as best two people could was what really mattered. ~ Bernard Malamud