Propositions Quotes

• It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Truth, Interesting, Important

  Adventures of Ideas pt. 4, ch. 16 (1933)

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• A truthmaker is an entity in virtue of which the proposition it makes true is true. And it is a necessary condition of being a truthmaker (though not a sufficient one) that a truthmaker necessitates the proposition it makes true.

  Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

  Virtue, Entity, Conditions

  "Truthmaking". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com.

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• Law is justice. In this proposition a simple and enduring government can be conceived. And I defy anyone to say how even the thought of revolution, of insurrection, of the slightest uprising could arise against a government whose organized force was confined only to suppressing injustice.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Simple, Government, Law

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.55, Cosimo, Inc.

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• A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.

  G. Gordon Liddy

  Inspirational, Funny, Money

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• The power of the people pervading the proposed system, together with the strong confederation of the states, will form an adequate security against every danger that has been apprehended.

  John Dickinson

  Strong, Power, Usa

  John Dickinson (1801). “The Political Writings of John Dickinson, Esquire: Late President of the State of Delaware, and of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania”, p.89

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• Reality is devoid of any intrinsic identity that can be captured by any one single proposition - that is what Buddha meant by "voidness."

  Dalai Lama

  Reality, Identity, Captured

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• Whenever a new discovery is reported to the world, they say first, It is probably not true, Then after, when the truth of the new proposition has been demonstrated beyond question, they say, Yes, it may be true, but it is not important. Finally, when sufficient time has elapsed to fully evidence its importance, they say, Yes, surely it is important, but it is no longer new.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Discovery, Important, World

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• History offers no evidence for the proposition that the assignment of women to military combat jobs is the way to win wars, improve combat readiness, or promote national security.

  Phyllis Schlafly

  Jobs, Military, War

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• We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express.

  A.J. Ayer

  Ifs And, Significant, Given

  'Language, Truth, and Logic' (2nd ed., 1946) p. 35

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• I enter into discussion and argument with great freedom and ease, inasmuch as opinion finds me in a bad soil to penetrate and take deep root in. No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, whatever contrast it offers to my own. There is no fancy so frivolous and so extravagant that it does not seem to me quite suitable to the production of the human mind.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Roots, Mind, Ease

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• I am arguing that faith as such, faith as an alleged method of acquiring knowledge, is totally invalid and as a consequence, all propositions of faith, because they lack rational demonstration, must conflict with reason.

  George H. Smith

  Religion, Atheism, Acquiring Knowledge

  George H. Smith (2010). “Atheism: The Case Against God”, p.120, Prometheus Books

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• [In many circumstances,] the most important thing about a proposition is not that it be true, but that it be interesting.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Interesting, Important, Circumstances

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• Once you attach your personality to a proposition, people start reacting to the personality and stop reacting to the proposition.

  Harvey Mackay

  People, Personality, Reacting

  FaceBook post by Harvey Mackay from Feb 15, 2013

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• That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise.

  David Hume

  Selfless, Sun, Tomorrow

  David Hume (2016). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: Revision of Great Book”, p.19, VM eBooks

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• Three years ago, this week, a newly elected President Obama faced the American people and he said, look, if I can't turn this economy around in three years, I'll be looking at a one-term proposition, and we're here to collect! You know the results. It's been 35 months of unemployment above 8 percent.

  Mitt Romney

  Years, People, President

  “CNN Newsroom”, www.cnn.com. February 1, 2012.

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• Romney has adopted almost every position conservatives want their candidate to espouse: He's pro-life, he wants to repeal ObamaCare, he wants to cut taxes and cut the federal budget, and he wants an unapologetic foreign policy dedicated to the proposition that this too will be the American century.

  John Podhoretz

  Cutting, Obamacare, Pro Life

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• When I got to college, acting suddenly seemed like a very risky proposition and all my friends were going to law school or med school or Wall Street.

  Wentworth Miller

  Wall, School, College

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Being is a spiritual proposition. Gaining is a material act. Traditionally, American Indians have always attempted to be the best people they could. Part of that spiritual process was and is to give away wealth, to discard wealth in order not to gain.

  Russell Means

  Spiritual, Order, People

  "I Am Not a Leader": Russell Means’ 1980 Mother Jones Cover Story, www.motherjones.com.

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• An eating disorder epidemic suggests that love and disgust are being jointly marketed, as it were; that wherever the proposition might first have come from, the unacceptability of the female body has been disseminated culturally.

  Rachel Cusk

  Epidemics, Eating Disorder, Female

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• You can get assent to almost any proposition so long as you are not going to do anything about it.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Agreement, Long

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• I hate facts. I always say the chief end of man is to form general propositions - adding that no general proposition is worth a damn.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Hate, Science, Men

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1943). “The Mind and Faith of Justice Holmes: His Speeches, Essays, Letters, and Judicial Opinions”, p.444, Transaction Publishers

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• The orthodox believers in God are divided into two camps, one of which maintains that the existence of God is as demonstrable as any mathematical proposition, while the other asserts that his existence is not demonstrable to the intellect.

  Annie Besant

  Two, Existence, Mathematical

  Annie Besant (2012). “The Theosophical Writings of Annie Besant”, p.219, Jazzybee Verlag

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• That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his assent.

  Aldous Huxley

  Equality, Men, Literature

  Proper Studies (1927) "The Idea of Equality"

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• Liberalism is an attitude rather than a set of dogmas - an attitude that insists upon questioning all plausible and self-evident propositions, seeking not to reject them but to find out what evidence there is to support them rather than their possible alternatives.

  Morris Raphael Cohen

  Attitude, Self, Support

  Morris Raphael Cohen (1993). “The Faith of a Liberal”, p.437, Transaction Publishers

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• To begin with, we put the proposition: pure phenomenology is the science of pure consciousness.

  Edmund Husserl

  Phenomenology, Consciousness, Pure

  Edmund Husserl, Peter McCormick, Frederick Elliston (1981). “Husserl, shorter works”, Univ of Notre Dame Pr

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