Less money spent on billboards that just make us feel good about ourselves and more on soup kitchens and organized visits to the sick and dying.

Those who share my heroes are, in the deepest sense, of my own kind.

When you ask why did some particular question occur to a scientist or philosopher for the first time, or why did this particular approach seem natural, then your questions concern the context of discovery. When you ask whether the argument the philosopher puts forth to answer that question is sound, or whether the evidence justifies the scientific theory proposed, then you've entered the context of justification. Considerations of history, sociology, anthropology, and psychology are relevant to the context of discovery, but not to justification.

Everyone loves a hero. What we differ on is the question of who the heroes are, because we differ over what matters. And who matters is a function of what matters. [If] what matters is intelligence, the people who matter are the intelligent, and the people who matter the most, the heroes, are the geniuses.

In order to refute a conclusion, you have to put forth the best possible argument for it.

Philosophy is this amazing technique we've devised for getting reality to answer us back when we're getting it wrong. Science itself can't make those arguments. You actually have to rely on philosophy, on philosophy of science.

Plato's concern is not just an intellectual issue, but it is knitted with emotional life as well.