Harry G. Frankfurt Quotes

#1. After all, every use of language without exception has some, if not all, of the characteristic features of lies.

Harry G. Frankfurt

#2. However, it must not be assumed that bullshit always and necessarily has pretentiousness as its motive.

Harry G. Frankfurt

#3. It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.

Harry G. Frankfurt

#4. Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstance require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about.

Harry G. Frankfurt

#5. Is truth something that in fact we do - and should - especially care about? Or is the love of truth, as professed by so many distinguished thinkers and writers, itself merely another example of bullshit?

Harry G. Frankfurt

#6. One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.

Harry G. Frankfurt

#7. Morality can provide at most only a severely limited and insufficient answer to the question of how a person should live.

Harry G. Frankfurt

#8. To establish and to sustain an advanced culture, we need to avoid being debilitated either by error or by ignorance. We need to know - and, of course, we must also understand how to make productive use of - a great many truths.

Harry G. Frankfurt

#9. Civilizations ... cannot flourish if they are beset with troublesome infections of mistaken beliefs.

Harry G. Frankfurt