Unscientific man is beset by a deplorable desire to have been right. The scientist is distinguished by a desire to be right.
Willard Van Orman QuineAn indirect quotation we can usually expect to rate only as better or worse, more or less faithful, and we cannot even hope for astrict standard of more and less; what is involved is evaluation, relative to special purposes, of an essentially dramatic act.
Willard Van Orman QuineThe scientist is indistinguishable from the common man in his sense of evidence, except that the scientist is more careful.
Willard Van Orman QuineLife is what the least of us make the most of us feel the least of us make the most of.
Willard Van Orman QuineThe strategy of semantic ascent is that it carries the discussion into a domain where both parties are better agreed on the objects (viz., words) and on the main terms connecting them. Words, or their inscriptions, unlike points, miles, classes and the rest, are tangible objects of the size so popular in the marketplace, where men of unlike conceptual schemes communicate at their best. The strategy is one of ascending to a common part of two fundamentally disparate conceptual schemes, the better to discuss the disparate foundations. No wonder it helps in philosophy.
Willard Van Orman Quine