Essential Philosophy Quotes

“The four major branches of philosophy – metaphysics (the study of reality); epistemology (the study of knowledge); politics (the study of state power); and ethics (the study of virtue) – are like the plumbing that delivers water to your sink. Aqueducts, sewers, piping – these all only have value insofar as they enable you to turn on a tap in your house and actually get some clean water. Metaphysics,”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“If you have a goal to pass a class in university, you have, at least hopefully, objective and well-defined steps by which you can achieve that goal – write an essay, go to class, pass an exam. If you don’t have a final goal, you cannot organize your activities.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“If you don’t examine your programming, your programming becomes your physics – as absolute and unchangeable as the laws of material reality.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“If you were raised badly, then you were conditioned by your parents to serve their dysfunctional needs, rather than the truth, integrity, honesty or any of the other basic virtues in life.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“By placing you in age-segregated confinement among a subset of traumatized and aggressive children, schools teach you very quickly that peers are dangerous and that teachers are needed to control bullying.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“The light of reason illuminates the madhouse around you.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“Think about it – why would someone so desperately need to believe that there is no such thing as right or wrong, truth or falsehood, good or evil, personal responsibility, morality, the capacity for love and respect and courage and integrity? What possible motivation could there be for someone to burn from the universe all that glory and joy and possibility? How much horror must they have experienced – or inflicted – in order to call in an airstrike on everything that makes life worth living, everything that gives us meaning, everything that gives us responsibility and self-respect, pride and love, motivation and responsibility?”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“have had countless debates with determinists over the course of my career as a public intellectual, and every single time, I have had the feeling – and yes, this is not an argument – that we are really only dancing around the core issue, which always remains unspoken.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“If you lack self-knowledge – if you lack the basic understanding of how you have been turned into a machine that serves the state, into a subspecies of tax livestock that serves politicians – then how can you claim to have any real understanding of freedom, let alone free will?”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“Without the state, we are told, we will be overrun by the insanity and evil of those around us – but the state is also somehow legitimized by the votes of the insane and evil around us.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“We are constantly told by the government that we are in danger – not from the state, of course, which taxes and conscripts us, starts wars and buries us in national debts – but from our fellow citizens.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“If governments were so interested in protecting people, then why did governments murder over two hundred and fifty million of their own citizens – outside of war – in the twentieth century alone?”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“It is dangerous to tell the truth to a society programmed to love lies.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“Remember: If a hypothesis cannot possibly be disproved, it can be irrefutably dismissed.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“That which we cannot change is the foundation of objective reality.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“In order to value truth, we must first establish the existence of an objective reality.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“Governments “protect” people in the way that farmers protect their livestock – in order to ensure maximum continued exploitation.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“Do you think you are free because you have the right to speak and to vote?”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“If you do not explore and understand how you have been programmed, you are little more than a machine. You”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“We praise a toddler for walking, because the toddler could not walk before. We clap relative to the child’s lack of ability in the past, but if we continue clapping, we strip the enthusiasm for achievement in the future. What originates as a form of motivation becomes a form of paralysis”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“If a man is insane, has a brain disease, or is mentally retarded to the point that he does not have the capacity to know the immorality of his actions, then we may decide to confine him, not as a moral punishment, but rather just to keep everyone else safe.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“Just because we don’t know everything doesn’t mean we can’t know some things.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“All knowledge is preceded by ignorance – that is the entire point of knowledge. Knowing what you know, and knowing what you don’t know – but could know – is the entire progress of human thought.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“Philosophy is the methodology that helps you determine the difference between subjective experiences and objective facts. We need philosophy precisely because mistaking our subjective experiences for objective facts is so easy.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on

“When we feel anxious, the most honest statement we can make is that we feel anxious. Making the anxiety “go away” by inventing some anti-rational magic to dispel the uncomfortable feeling brought about by an assertive argument is dishonest and destructive.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Essential Philosophy: How to know what on earth is going on