Morris Raphael Cohen Quotes

A creative element is surely present in all great systems, and it does not seem possible that all sympathy or fundamental attitudes of will can be entirely eliminated from any human philosophy.

Cruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims.

Law must be viewed as a formless mass of isolated decisions.

Conservatism clings to what has been established, fearing that, once we begin to question the beliefs that we have inherited, all the values of life will be destroyed.

Let philosophy resolutely aim to be as scientific as possible, but let her not forget her strong kinship with literature.

Small groups or communities may be far more oppressive to the individual than larger ones. Men are in many ways freer in large cities than in small villages.

Again, both literature and philosophy work by appealing to certain reigning idols.

The picture which the philosopher draws of the world is surely not one in which every stroke is necessitated by pure logic.

Lastly, literature and philosophy both allow past idols to be resurrected with a frequency which would be truly distressing to a sober scientist.

Wisdom is not to be obtained from textbooks, but must be coined out of human experience in the flame of life.

If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good.

The business of the philosopher is well done if he succeeds in raising genuine doubt.

Inertia is the first law of history, as it is of physics.

If a philosophic theory is once ruled out of court, no one can tell when it will appear again.

To be sure, the vast majority of people who are untrained can accept the results of science only on authority.

All logic texts are divided into two parts. In the first part, on deductible logic, the fallacies are explained; in the second part, on inductive logic, they are committed.