Richard Rorty

The difference between people and ideas is... only superficial.

Truth is simply a compliment paid to sentences seen to be paying their way.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

I think you can have a Left that isn't culturally conservative talking about lunch-bucket issues.

Academic disciplines are subject to being overtaken by attacks of "knowingness"- a state of mind and soul that prevents shudders of awe and makes one immune to enthusiasm.

I think that a good Left is a party that always thinks about the future and doesn't care much about our past sins.

The usual picture of Socrates is of an ugly little plebeian who inspired a handsome young nobleman to write long dialogues on large topics.

A talent for speaking differently, rather than for arguing well is the chief instrument of cultural change.

The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human beings can do that.

Well, what there ought to be is an international labor organization, a confederation of the trade unions of all the countries speaking for the workers who are competing with one another, and talking about the difference in wage levels between, say, Europe and Indonesia.

I think of an intellectual as just being bookish, being interested in history books, utopian ideas, that kind of thing.

There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves.