An extravagance is something that your spirit thinks is a necessity.
Bernard WilliamsRead
Ideas are like wandering sons. They show up when you least expect them.
Interpretation
Ideas can appear unexpectedly, often surprising us when we least anticipate them.
This quote by Bernard Williams signifies the unpredictable nature of inspiration and creativity. It suggests that ideas, much like wandering sons, arrive unexpectedly and often require us to be open and receptive to embrace their potential, reminding us that creativity can strike at any moment.
In practice
During a brainstorming session, when an unexpected idea pops up, referencing this quote can illustrate the spontaneous nature of creativity.
An extravagance is something that your spirit thinks is a necessity.
There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.
Contemporary moral philosophy has found an original way of being boring, which is by not discussing moral issues at all.
The majority of philosophers are totally humorless. That's part of their trouble.
People have been predicting the death of philosophy since the 17th century. When I was a student, people were saying, 'We're in the last days of philosophy.' Then we were told in the '60s it would be replaced by sociology, then by literary criticism.
Virtually the only subject in which one could ever get a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge was classics. So I went to Oxford to study classics and, unlike Cambridge, it had a philosophy component, and I became completely transported by it.
I say no body of men are fit to make Presidents, judges and generals, unless they themselves supply the best specimens of the same; and that supplying one or two such specimens illuminates the whole body for a thousand years.
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
Alas,we who wanted kindness, could not be kind ourselves.
None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but licence.
Our cure, to be no more; sad cure!
Why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from Birth must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient.
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