54 Quotes by Richard Rorty

There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves.

The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human beings can do that.

Truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with.

Ontology is more like a playground than a science.

Taylor and I both pride ourselves on having escaped that collapsed circus tent of epistemology—those acres of canvas under which many of our colleagues still thrash aimlessly about.

The usual picture of Socrates is of an ugly little plebeian who inspired a handsome young nobleman to write long dialogues on large topics.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

Truth is simply a compliment paid to sentences seen to be paying their way.

I think of an intellectual as just being bookish, being interested in history books, utopian ideas, that kind of thing.