William Irvine > Quotes

“OUR MOST IMPORTANT CHOICE in life, according to Epictetus, is whether to concern ourselves with things external to us or things internal. Most people choose the former because they think harms and benefits come from outside themselves.”
― William Irvine

“Who would be a more suitable leader of a city or more worthy to rule over people than a philosopher? It is appropriate for him (if he really is a philosopher) to be wise, self-controlled, magnanimous, a judge of just and proper things, able to accomplish what he sets out to do, and able to endure pain. In addition to these things, he should be bold, fearless, able to face things that seem terrible, and also a benefactor, honest, and humane.”
― William Irvine, Musonius Rufus: Lectures and Sayings

“Life blindly breeds, battles, and slaughters its way up to mind and rationality”
― William Irvine, Apes, Angels and Victorians: The Story of Darwin, Huxley, and Evolution

“Hypotheses were constantly reaching out into the darkness – slowly, almost inevitably refining and rectifying themselves through empirical contact with reality”
― William Irvine, Apes, Angels and Victorians: The Story of Darwin, Huxley, and Evolution

“To think wishfully, to rest in comforting illusion when scientific truth is conceivably within reach, is to desecrate both one’s self and the universe.”
― William Irvine, Apes, Angels and Victorians: The Story of Darwin, Huxley, and Evolution

“[One] way to overcome our obsession with winning the admiration of other people is to go out of our way to do things likely to trigger their disdain. . . Cato made a point of ignoring the dictates of fashion. . .According to Plutarch, Cato did this not because he “sought vainglory”; to the contrary , he dressed differently in order to accustom himself “to be ashamed only of what was really shameful, and to ignore men’s low opinion of other things.” In other words, Cato consciously did things to trigger the disdain of other people simply so he could practice ignoring their disdain.”
― William Irvine

“Science and religion...have been perennially at war. The one studies nature and produces progress. The other explores supernature and produces confusion and darkness. In fact, progress is directly proportionate to the victory of naturalism over supernaturalism.”
― William Irvine, Apes, Angels and Victorians: The Story of Darwin, Huxley, and Evolution

“Nature breeds a vast oversupply of experiments and then sterilizes the failures by murdering them.”
― William Irvine, Apes, Angels and Victorians: The Story of Darwin, Huxley, and Evolution