Willard Van Orman Quine Quotes

"Physics investigates the essential nature of the world, and biology describes a local bump. Psychology, human psychology, describes a bump on the bump."
- Willard Van Orman Quine
(Related: Nature, Physics, Psychology, World)

"'Ouch' is not independent of social training. One has only to prick a foreigner to appreciate that it is an English word."
- Willard Van Orman Quine
(Related: English, Training, Word)

"To be is to be the value of a variable."
- Willard Van Orman Quine
(Related: Value)

"Uncritical semantics is the myth of a museum in which the exhibits are meanings and the words are labels. To switch languages is to change the labels."
- Willard Van Orman Quine
(Related: Change, Myth, Semantics, Words)

"Confusion of sign and object is original sin coeval with the word."
- Willard Van Orman Quine
(Related: Confusion, Sin, Word)

"It is one of the consolations of philosophy that the benefit of showing how to dispense with a concept does not hinge on dispensing with it."
- Willard Van Orman Quine
(Related: Philosophy)

"Language is a social art."
- Willard Van Orman Quine
(Related: Art, Language)

"Language is conceived in sin and science is its redemption."
- Willard Van Orman Quine
(Related: Science, Language, Sin)

"Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word."
- Willard Van Orman Quine
(Related: Meaning, Word)

"The familiar material objects may not be all that is real, but they are admirable examples."
- Willard Van Orman Quine
(Related: May)

"One man's observation is another man's closed book or flight of fancy."
- Willard Van Orman Quine
(Related: Fancy, Man, Observation)