Matthew Lipman > Quotes

“I guess the people who're always trying to prove something are the ones who really don't believe it.”
― Matthew Lipman, Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery

“Books and people are alike in one respect: they're both full of thoughts.”
― Matthew Lipman, Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery

“Everytime we use an invention or read a book or study a science or listen to music, we’re enjoying someone else’s idea— someone who may have lived thousands of years ago, and thousands of miles away from here.”
― Matthew Lipman, Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery

“Seldom have I seen children dissatisfied with the product they took from a philosophical discussion, even if it is only some modest philosophical distinction, for they recognize how before that acquisition they had even less. Children, unlike adults, do not look insistently for answers or conclusions. They look rather for the kind of transformation that philosophy provides – not giving a new answer to an old question, but transforming all the questions.”
― Matthew Lipman, Thinking in Education

“Somehow, when a person you like reads your poem and says they like it, the poem seems all fresh and new afterwards. I wonder why?”
― Matthew Lipman, Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery

“But you don't prove anything at all when you say it's something you just can't imagine happening.”
― Matthew Lipman, Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery