成为一名哲学家，并且保持这一状态
要成为一名哲学家，首先走路要非常慢。
真正的数学家能理解完整性，真正的哲学家能理解不完整性。
25个世纪以来，一直没有出现在聪明、深度、优雅、才智和想象力方面堪比柏拉图的人——这样一个人能保护我们免受他的遗产影响。
我为什么非得跟柏拉图过不去？绝大多数人需要超越前人，而柏拉图成功超越了所有后来人。
做一名哲学家意味着仅仅通过思考就能弄清楚事情是什么样的，是先验的；别人只能通过错误、危机、事故和崩溃来弄清楚事情是什么样的，是后验的。
工程师会计算而不会定义，数学家会定义而不会计算，经济学家既不会定义也不会计算。
有限但上限未知的东西，在认识论上跟无限的东西没有什么两样。这是认识论的无限性。
有意识的无知，如果你做得到的话，可以扩展你的世界，它可以让事物变得无限。
对古典哲学家们来说，哲学洞察力是一辈子闲散生活的结果；对我来说，一辈子闲散生活是哲学洞察力的结果。
要承认有道理的东西并不是真的有道理，需要大量的智能和信心。
宗教理论中的普罗克拉斯提斯之床：对正统基督徒而言自格利高里·帕拉玛斯以来，对阿拉伯人而言自阿伽扎里以来，人们一直在试图用哲学上的普适语言来定义上帝，这是一个理性主义的错误。我还在等待某个现代人意识到这一点。
说“不确定性的数学”就像说“性的贞洁”一样——数学化的东西就不是不确定的，反之亦然。
悲剧的是，我们从傻瓜、经济学家和别的反例人物身上学到了最多的东西，但我们却对他们一点都不感激。
在柏拉图的《普罗泰戈拉篇》里，苏格拉底提出，哲学是人们协同追求真理的过程，跟诡辩者们花言巧语追求辩论胜利、名誉和金钱形成了鲜明的对比。25个世纪之后的今天，满目全都是领薪水的研究人员和喜爱名誉地位的书呆子。所谓“进步”不过如此。
BEING A PHILOSOPHER AND MANAGING TO REMAIN ONE
To become a philosopher, start by walking very slowly.
Real mathematicians understand completeness, real philosophers understand incompleteness.
In twenty-five centuries, no human camealong with the brilliance, depth, elegance, wit, and imagination to match——Plato to protect us from his legacy.
Why do I have an obsessive Plato problem? Most people need to surpass their predecessors; Plato managed to surpass all his successors.
To be a philosopher is to know through long walks, by reasoning, and reasoning only, a priori, what others can only potentially learn from their mistakes, crises, accidents, and bankruptcies, that is, a posteriori.
Engineers can compute but not define, mathematicians can define but not compute, economists can neither define nor compute.
Something finite but with unknown upper bounds is epistemically equivalent to something infinite. This is epistemic infinity.
Conscious ignorance, if you can practice it, expands your world; it can make things infinite.
For the classics, philosophical insight was the product of a life of leisure; for me, a life of leisure is the product of philosophical insight.
It takes a lot of intellect and confidence to accept that what makes sense doesn't really make sense.
A theological Procrustean bed: For the Orthodox since Gregory Palamas and for the Arabs since Algazel, attempts to define God using the language of philosophical universals were a rationalistic mistake. I am still waiting for a modern to take notice.
Saying "the mathematics of uncertainty" is like saying "the chastity of sex"——what is mathematized is no longer uncertain, and vice versa.
Sadly, we learn the most from fools, economists, and other reverse role models, yet we pay them back with the worst ingratitude.
In Plato's Protagoras, Socrates ontrasts hilosophy as the collaborative search for truth with the sophist's use of rhetoric to gain the upper hand in argument for fame and money. Twenty-five centuries later, this is exactly the salaried researcher and the modern tenure-loving academic. Progress.