Quotessence
Home / Quotes / W Quotes

W Quotes

Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.

All W Quotes

“Why do people that ask for “evidence” never ask for rational explanation? What is more reliable? – analytic reason, or the unreliable, fallible, limited, frequently delusional human senses where it is guaranteed that they are showing us only phenomena and never noumena (i.e. things in themselves). You cannot understand reality as a phenomenon, although this is in fact exactly what science tries to do. You can understand reality only as a noumenon – as an intelligible thing in itself – and that’s exactly what ontological mathematics is all about. Anyone that obsesses over phenomenal evidence is an opponent of noumenal truth, which is never subject to phenomenal evidence.”

“Why do people think that it's appropriate to talk to me about my body? Why do men think it's appropriate to literally write comments that not only I will see but that the world will see about my breast size, the clothes I should be taking off, the kinds of things they want to see more of on Instagram, which all refer to my body. And that's not even getting into the threats of violence. And they come every day. They come every day. And it's wild to me that people think this stuff is appropriate.”

“Why do people think the spiritual life demands withdrawal from the ordinary? Because they've been taught, at least by implication, that the physical is a block to the spiritual. When we assume that the spiritual, unlike the physical, is impervious to corrosion, then we assume that all things material are not to be honored. But the fact of the matter is, the material is the vehicle of the spiritual.”

“Why do purely observational studies fail so often despite finding such clear associations? The diet soda example tells the tale. All of those alternative theories I mentioned can be boiled down to a single, devastating possibility: what if diet soda drinkers are just fundamentally different from regular soda drinkers, in any of the ways I mentioned, and this difference colors everything about the way they live and behave? Scientists call this the selection effect, or selection bias. When human beings are free to behave as they always have—free to willfully choose their behavior—there is no meaningful way to find a control group of comparable subjects.”

“Why do scientists never debate philosophers? It’s because they know they would be destroyed in argument, when they have to actually clarify their ridiculous and embarrassing belief system. Mandarins, in their little priesthoods, hide behind jargon so that they know that no outsiders can laugh at their lack of clarity. They create an in-language so that only the insiders can know how absurd the belief system is, and they all have a vested interest in maintaining the fiction. That’s how the Mandarin system works. They don’t dare to be clear because then it would be clear that they are the emperor in his new clothes and know nothing at all.”

“Why do so many ingenious theorists give fresh reasons every year for the decline of letter writing, and why do they assume, in derision of suffering humanity, that it has declined? They lament the lack of leisure, the lack of sentiment ... They talk of telegrams, and telephones, and postal cards, as if any discovery of science, any device of civilization, could eradicate from the human heart that passion for self-expression which is the impelling force of letters.”

“Why do so many marriages fail? Because nobody gets taught how to be married. We're not taught how to pick a mate, or why to pick a mate; we don't know how to manage our emotions once we're in a marriage; we don't know how to resolve marital conflict. Married people have never been taught why they or their spouses feel the way they do and act the way they do. Nobody has ever taught us the fundamentals.”

“Why do so many of us not give ourselves permission to be alive until we are absolutely assured that we will die? ...If we are not in [this present millisecond of life and conscious experience], we are not alive; we are merely thinking our lives. Yet we have seen so many die, looking back over their shoulders at their lives, shaking their heads and muttering in bewilderment, "What was that all about?"”

“Why do so many today want to wander off to South Africa or Kenya or India or Russia or Honduras or Costa Rica or Peru to help with justice issues but not spend the same effort in their own neighborhood or community or state? Why do young suburbanites, say in Chicago, want to go to Kentucky or Tennessee to help people but not want to spend that same time to go to the inner city in their own area to help with justice issues? I asked this question to a mature student in my office one day, and he thought he had a partial explanation: 'Because my generation is searching for experiences, and the more exotic and extreme the better. Going down the street to help at a food shelter is good and it is just and some of us are doing that, but it's not an experience. We want experiences.”

“Why do so many young people literally die to belong to fraternities, sororities, and other college social organizations? The answer is complicated, but here is a starting point: Ever since the medieval universities were founded, young people have done whatever it takes to gain acceptance, to break with their past lives, to achieve a sense of power, to carve out a society of their own that isn't quite what their tutors and teachers had in mind. In the United States, hazing and drinking have been endemic since colonial days.”

“Why do soldiers fight? They join because they believe in a higher cause -- protecting religion, their nation, defending against a foreign nation. But why do soldier stay and fight? Soldiers aren't individuals. They are part of a unit. And that unit is led by a commander. If they don't trust their commander ... if there is no leadership, there is nothing.”

“Why do some die and some live? The answer was clearly, that on the whole the best fitted live. From the effects of disease the most healthy escaped; from enemies, the strongest, swiftest, or the most cunning; from famine, the best hunters or those with the best digestion; and so on. Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self-acting process would necessarily improve the race, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain-that is, the fittest would survive.”