Paul Karl Feyerabend Quotes

Somewhere among the commotion I grew rather depressed. The depression stayed with me for over a year; it was like an animal, a well-defined, spatially localizable thing. I would wake up, open my eyes, listen-is it here or isn't it? No sign of it. Perhaps it's asleep. Perhaps it will leave me alone today. Carefully, very carefully, I get out of bed. All is quiet. I go to the kitchen, start breakfast. Not a sound. TV-Good Morning America, David what's-his-name, a guy I can't stand. I eat and watch the guests. Slowly the food fills my stomach and gives me strength. Now a quick excursion to the bathroom, and out for my morning walk-and here she is, my faithful depression: "Did you think you could leave without me?" I had often warned my students not to identify with their work. I told them, "if you want to achieve something, if you want to write a book, paint a picture, be sure that the center of your existence if somewhere else and that it's solidly grounded; only then will you be able to keep your cool and laugh at the attacks that are bound to come." I myself had followed this advice in the past, but now I was alone, sick with some unknown affliction; my private life was in a mess, and I was without a defense. I often wished I had never written that fucking book. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

The withdrawal of philosophy into a "professional" shell of its own has had disastrous consequences. The younger generation of physicists, the Feynmans, the Schwingers, etc., may be very bright; they may be more intelligent than their predecessors, than Bohr, Einstein, Schrödinger, Boltzmann, Mach and so on. But they are uncivilized savages, they lack in philosophical depth – and this is the fault of the very same idea of professionalism which you are now defending. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

All religions are good 'in principle' - but unfortunately this abstract Good has only rarely prevented their practitioners from behaving like bastards. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

The separation of state and church must be complemented by the separation of state and science, that most recent, most aggressive, and most dogmatic religious institution. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

We need a dream-world in order to discover the features of the real world we think we inhabit. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

In the first case it emerges that the evidence that might refute a theory can often be unearthed only with the help of an incompatible alternative: the advice (which goes back to Newton and which is still popular today) to use alternatives only when refutations have already discredited the orthodox theory puts the cart before the horse. Also, some of the most important formal properties of a theory are found by contrast, and not by analysis. A scientist who wishes to maximize the empirical content of the views he holds and who wants to understand them as clearly as he possibly can must therefore introduce other views; that is, he must adopt a pluralistic methodology. He must compare ideas with other ideas rather than with 'experience' and he must try to improve rather than discard the views that have failed in the competition. Proceeding in this way he will retain the theories of man and cosmos that are found in Genesis, or in the Pimander, he will elaborate them and use them to measure the success of evolution and other 'modern' views. He may then discover that the theory of evolution is not as good as is generally assumed and that it must be supplemented, or entirely replaced, by an improved version of Genesis. Knowledge so conceived is not a series of self-consistent theories that converges towards an ideal view; it is not a gradual approach to truth. It is rather an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible alternatives, each single theory, each fairy-tale, each myth ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

Without a constant misuse of language there cannot be any discovery, any progress ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

The objection that science is self-correcting and thus needs no outside interference overlooks, first, that every enterprise is self-correcting (look at what happened to the Catholic Church after Vatican II) and, secondly, that in a democracy the self-correction of the whole which tries to achieve more humane ways of living overrules the self-correction of the parts which has a more narrow aim -- unless the parts are given temporary independence. Hence in a democracy local populations not only will, but also should, use the sciences in ways most suitable to them. The objection that citizens do not have the expertise to judge scientific matters overlooks that important problems often lie across the boundaries of various sciences so that scientists within these sciences don't have the needed expertise either. Moreover, doubtful cases always produce experts for the one side, experts for the other side, and experts in between. But the competence of the general public could be vastly improved by an education that exposes expert fallibility instead of acting as if it did not exist. (Chapter 19) ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

In a democracy scientific institutions, research programmes, and suggestions must therefore be subjected to public control, there must be a separation of state and science just as there is a separation between state and religious institutions, and science should be taught as one view among many and not as the one and only road to truth and reality. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

Teachers' using grades and the fear of failure mould the brains of the young until they have lost every ounce of imagination they might once have possessed. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

The pygmies, for example, or the Mindoro of the Philippines, do not want equal rights – they just want to be left alone. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

Work is the undoing of nature. ~ Paul Majkut

the surplice and alb signify innocence; the cord that serves as a girdle is an emblem of chastity and modesty; the amice, of purity of heart and body - the helmet of salvation mentioned by Saint Paul. The maniple, of good works, vigilance, and the tears and sweat poured out by the priest to win and save souls; the stole, of obedience, the clothing on of immortality given to us in baptism; the dalmatic, of justice, of which we must give proof in our ministrations; the chasuble, of the unity of the faith, and also of the yoke of Christ ~ Joris-Karl Huysmans

At 8 o'clock in the morning a dense throng of workers - almost 10,000 - assembled in the square, which the police had already occupied well ahead of time. Karl Liebknecht's voice then rang out: 'Down with the War! Down with the Government!' The police immediately rushed at him. For the first time since the beginning of the war open resistance to it had appeared on the streets of the capital. The ice was broken. ~ Paul Frolich

Karl Popper, in The Open Society and Its Enemies, made a comment that sounds almost prophetic now: that the happy, primitive society (which, by the way, never existed) is lost for all those who have eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The more we try to return to the heroic age of tribalism, Popper warns, the more certainly we will reach the Inquisition, the secret police, and a romanticized gangsterism. But once the existential problems of the individual, who is good by nature, can be blamed on the "evil" society, nothing stands in the way of sheer imagination. The definition of the benevolent society free of all power is only a question of fantasy. ~ Paul Watzlawick

When I met Maria at Sachs' apartment in 1979, she hadn't slept with a man in close to three years. It took her that long to recover from the shock of the beating, and abstinence was not a choice so much as a necessity, the only possible cure. As much as the physical humiliation she had suffered, the incident with Jerome had been a spiritual defeat. For the first time in her life, Maria had been chastened. She had stepped over the boundaries of herself, and the brutality of that experience had altered her sense of who she was. Until then, she had imagined herself capable of any thing: any adventure, any transgression, any dare. She had felt stronger than other people, immunized against the ravages and failures that afflict the rest of humanity. After the switch with Lilian, she learned how badly she had deceived herself. She was weak, she discovered, a person hemmed in by her own fears and inner constraints, as mortal and confused as anyone else.
It took her three years to repair the damage (to the extent that it was ever repaired), and when we crossed paths at Sachs's apartment that night, she was more or less ready to emerge from her shell. ~ Paul Auster

Personally, I tend to worry about what I save, not what I spend. ~ Paul Clitheroe

God is more concerned about our character than our comfort. HIs goal is not to pamper us physically, but to perfect us spiritually. ~ Paul W. Powell

The ultimate rebellion wasn't fighting the system, it was circumventing the system and living your life fully. ~ Paul Stanley

I wish I could put it back together again. Not as it was before- that is of course impossible. But enough to see it, truly see it, as it once was. ~ Claudia Gray

You see, I'm fond of teasing, it's
a second nature with me - and I'm used to teasing myself. Plaguing myself, if you prefer; I don't tease nicely. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

I believe that in the future meditation could be as commonplace in schools and society as eco-awareness is now. It interests me that an ancient cure may be the solution to a modern problem. ~ Paul McCartney

Science fiction is a literary field crowded with strong opinions, and no SF novelist delivered himself more memorably of his views - on politics, sexuality, religion, and many other contentious topics - than Robert Heinlein. ~ Paul Di Filippo

Beyond the desert of criticism, we wish to be called again. ~ Paul Ricoeur

Arizona has always been anti-black. ~ Paul Mooney

In the designs of Providence, there are no mere coincidences. ~ Pope John Paul II

I wouldn't sell my bike for all the money in the world. Not for a hundred million, trillion, billion dollars! ~ Paul Reubens

Al-Awlaki was born here, he is an American citizen. He was never tried or charged for any crimes. No one knows if he killed anybody. We know he might have been associated with the underwear bomber. But if the American people accept this blindly and casually that we now have an accepted practice of the president assassinating people who he thinks are bad guys, I think it's sad. ~ Ron Paul

I met Paul in 1967, Ringo in 1985, and I saw George Harrison in a nightclub somewhere in L. A. I never met John. ~ Brian Wilson

She was thinking about how her middle-school alma mater was now 75 percent Latino, when in her day it was 80 percent black. Thinking ~ Paul Beatty

Even when I'm just sitting at my desk, I have to get up every twenty minutes or so and walk around, walk around, walk around, and then I can go back to the page. I can't just sit there for hours at a time. Language comes out of the body as much as the mind. ~ Paul Auster

But I can't see anything any more: however much I search the past I can only retrieve scraps of images and I am not sure what they represent, nor whether they are remembered or invented. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Even a bad idea executed is better than a good idea undone. ~ Paul Arden

Ephesians 5:25-27 is actually one long sentence. In these verses Paul is saying that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. He did this that He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of water in the Word, in order that He might present the church to Himself glorious, without spot, wrinkle, or any such things. ~ Witness Lee

Science, I had come to learn, is as political, competitive, and fierce a career as you can find, full of the temptation to find easy paths ~ Paul Kalanithi

Don't do this to me, Eliza. Please. I need you." I looked at Paul. He was crying. "You don't need me," I said, wondering whether or not I believed it. He gripped my face and kissed me. But it was a hard, painful kiss. A severe and bitter kiss. A kiss that seemed so black, so final, it was like death. "Happy fucking Birthday. ~ Tiffanie DeBartolo

I know jazz is completely un-American. But the reason why America doesn't like it is because it's not funny. We [americans] have made jazz funny. ~ Paul Provenza

bought a pristine copy of Man on the Run, a biography of Paul McCartney that began not with the Beatles, but with what McCartney did after they broke up. Parker had always preferred McCartney's work to John Lennon's, whatever effect it might have had on his standing with the cool kids. Lennon could only ever really write about himself, and Parker felt that he lacked empathy. McCartney, by contrast, was capable of thinking, or feeling, himself into the lives of others. It was the difference between "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane": although Parker loved both songs, "Penny Lane" was filled with characters, while "Strawberry Fields Forever" really had only one, and his name was John Lennon. Parker might even have taken the view that Lennon needed to get out of his apartment more, but when he did, an idiot shot him. He'd probably been right to spend the best part of a decade locked inside. Ross appeared just as McCartney ~ John Connolly

It's a rare day when she speaks in anything but platitudes
all those exhausted phrases and hand-me-down ideas that cram the dump sites of contemporary wisdom ~ Paul Auster

Our need is so desperate an idea, a thing, a law can't help us. It took one thing, the gift of gifts, God in the flesh, to rescue us. ~ Paul David Tripp

Philosophy studies the world, but the point is to change it. ~ Karl Marx