American Philosopher

Famous quotes containing the words american and/or philosopher:

    There exists in a great part of the Northern people a gloomy diffidence in the moral character of the government. On the broaching of this question, as general expression of despondency, of disbelief that any good will accrue from a remonstrance on an act of fraud and robbery, appeared in those men to whom we naturally turn for aid and counsel. Will the American government steal? Will it lie? Will it kill?—We ask triumphantly.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    No philosopher understands his predecessors until he has re-thought their thought in his own contemporary terms.
    Sir Peter Frederick Strawson (b. 1919)