The only answer to the endless chains of why, why, why is that the alternatives died.
DANIEL DENNETTThe only answer to the endless chains of why, why, why is that the alternatives died.
DANIEL DENNETTThe best thing about saying thank goodness in place of thank God this that here really are lots of ways of repaying your debt of goodness – by setting to create more of it, for the benefit of those to come.
DANIEL DENNETTWe need to let our children grow up to face the world armed with knowledge, with much more knowledge than we ourselves had at their age. It is scary, but the alternative is worse.
DANIEL DENNETTThere are no good reasons to believe in god.
DANIEL DENNETTChurches have given us great treasures such as music and architecture. Whether that pays for the harm they have done is another matter.
DANIEL DENNETTThe only meaning of life worth caring about is one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it.
DANIEL DENNETTDarwin’s idea of natural selection makes people uncomfortable because it reverses the direction of tradition.
DANIEL DENNETTA child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.
DANIEL DENNETTThe chief trick to making good mistakes is not to hide them-especially not from yourself.
DANIEL DENNETTPhilosophers’ Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.
DANIEL DENNETTI am inclined to think that nothing could matter more than what people love. At any rate, I can think of no value that I would place higher. I would not want to live in a world without love.
DANIEL DENNETTThe way evolution always discovers reasons is by retroactive endorsement.
DANIEL DENNETTNot a single one of the cells that compose you knows who you are, or cares.
DANIEL DENNETTThere’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion.
DANIEL DENNETTWords are memes that can be pronounced.
DANIEL DENNETTTo put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant — inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write.
DANIEL DENNETT