I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory.
Interpretation
The quote reflects skepticism towards a purely materialistic view of life, particularly regarding emotions.
Tom Stoppard expresses his doubt about the materialist perspective that reduces emotions to mere electrical impulses in the brain. While he does not offer a counter-theory, he emphasizes the complexity and significance of emotions beyond physical explanations, suggesting that there is more to our emotional experiences than can be scientifically quantified.
In practice
In a debate about the nature of consciousness, one could use this quote to highlight the limitations of a reductionist view.
Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something which is very, very deep in us and is very easily obscured, and is also very easily denied, which is the instinct towards the other person, other than toward the self.
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time.
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.
I think theater ought to be theatrical ... you know, shuffling the pack in different ways so that it's -- there's always some kind of ambush involved in the experience. You're being ambushed by an unexpected word, or by an elephant falling out of the cupboard, whatever it is.
Our society is dependent on some precarious mechanisms, and they are very dicey. They can easily collapse.
The responsibility of philanthropy rests with us. The wealthier we are, the more powerful we get. We cannot put the entire onus on the government.
He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.
My good friend, you are a citizen of Athens, a city which is very great and very famous for its wisdom and power - are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?
The golden age only comes to men when they have forgotten gold.
Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.
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