In our own lives, we may do well to put the pursuit of happiness above the avoidance of suffering; a life thus lived is likely to be more interesting and, paradoxically, may involve less suffering in the long run. However, in our dealings with others, we should apply the reverse principle, since the happiness we offer is nebulous and uncertain, while the suffering we may inflict is depressingly predictable. There is no sure way to make a person happy, but a poke in the eye is guaranteed to hurt.
Philosophy is at its most attractive and dangerous when it has the potential to change our behaviour. For this reason, serious work on ethics should be restricted to those who are so set in their ways that a new definition of the good would be a mere curiosity, and political philosophy to those who have long since lost interest in changing the world.
Composers often reserve their genius for string quartets, presumably in the knowledge that no one will listen to them too carefully except for the four people most likely to appreciate them.
Wittgenstein owes his fame to the fact that while other philosophers were writing footnotes to Plato, he was writing footnotes to Wittgenstein.
People who insist on using Windows in a multi-user networked evironment are like people who want a 4x4 but insist that it has to be a three-wheeler.
Contradictions are not contradictions.
People think that a computer should be like a television--all you do is switch it on and choose the channel, and if you can adjust the contrast, you're a power-user. In fact, it's more like a car--if you don't spend time learning how to use it, it'll crash.
Life is too short for emacs.
I'd like to write self-improvement books, but I suppose I should improve myself a bit first.
Few will gladly lay down their lives for the good of humanity, and those who will usually have very strange ideas about what the good of humanity entails.
If I had a penny for every page of Kant's Critiques I'd struggled through--I'd have sixpence.
Kant thought that homosexuals and masturbators were lower than animals. He obviously never owned a dog.
Believers will always outnumber atheists because even when they start to lose their faith, they will not deny it, just in case there really is a Hell after all. On the other hand, there are no penalties for denying the absence of a deity.