Discover new books on Goodreads
Meet your next favorite book

David Goldman

Add friend
Sign in to Goodreads to learn more about David.


Book cover for Gorgias
We will not appreciate Plato’s forceful denunciation of oratory if we fail to understand the importance of oratory in the social and political life of fifth-century Athens. In the major institutions of the democracy in Athens, such as the ...more
Loading...
David Foster Wallace
“The truth is that the heroism of your childhood entertainments was not true valor. It was theatre. The grand gesture, the moment of choice, the mortal danger, the external foe, the climactic battle whose outcome resolves all--all designed to appear heroic, to excite and gratify and audience. Gentlemen, welcome to the world of reality--there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire. No one to see you. Do you understand? Here is the truth--actual heroism receives no ovation, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested.”
David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

Immanuel Kant
“But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.”
Immanuel Kant

David Foster Wallace
“The key is the ability, whether innate or conditioned, to find the other side of the rote, the picayune, the meaningless, the repetitive, the pointlessly complex. To be, in a word, unborable... It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.”
David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

Immanuel Kant
“I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.”
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

David Foster Wallace
“To experience commitment as the loss of options, a type of death, the death of childhood's limitless possibility, of the flattery of choice without duress-this will happen, mark me. Childhood's end.”
David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

year in books
Mark
1,039 books | 211 friends

Amy Fed...
661 books | 41 friends

Greg
122 books | 92 friends

Steve L...
88 books | 57 friends

Theresa
418 books | 58 friends

Shawn R...
380 books | 68 friends

Holly
142 books | 115 friends

Joe Black
66 books | 57 friends

More friends…



Polls voted on by David

Lists liked by David