… the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, ‘Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it’s all true you’ll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn’t then you’ve lost nothing, right?’ When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, ‘We’re going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts …’ (H)
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'Philosophers are always having ideas in the bath ...' (TG)
… he was talking in philosophy, but they were listening in gibberish. (SG)
… any philosophical remark that begins with ‘I reckon’ was probably unlikely to come up with a world-shattering insight or even a new un-shattered one. (JD)
Nanny’s philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down. (Ma)
The only things known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you can’t have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles - kingons, or possibly queons - that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails
if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expounded because, at that point, the bar closed. (M) For according to the trollish philosopher Plateau, ‘if you want to understan’ an enemy, you gotta walk a mile in his shoes. Den, if he’s still you enemy, at least you’re a mile away and he’s got no shoes.’ (BOS)
‘What I really like about the English is that they don’t have theories. No Englishman would ever have said, “I think, therefore I am.” Although possibly he might have said, “I Think therefore I am, I think.”’ (Do)
… the venerable philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle says, you have to do something or be considered, in the great scheme of things, a tit. (Sn)
They are said to be incapable of lying, although this piece of information has been provided by the Zoons themselves, causing, as it were, a philosophical conundrum. (Sn)
‘Aristocrats don’t notice philosophical conundra. They just ignore them. Philosophy includes contemplating the possibility that you might be wrong, sir, and a real aristocrat knows that he is always right. It’s not vanity, you understand, it’s built-in absolute certainty. They may sometimes be as mad as a hatful of spoons, but they are always definitely and certainly mad.’ (Sn)
'You see, the thing about football is that it is not just about football.' (UA)
'… I see evil when I look in my shaving mirror. It is, philosophically, present everywhere in the universe in order, apparently, to highlight the existence of good. I think there is more to this theory, but I tend to burst out laughing at this point.' (UA)
'There are more things in Heaven and Disc than are dreamed of in our philosophies.'
'I expect so, sir. I don't have many things in my philosophies.' (UA) Apes had it worked out. No ape would philosophize, 'The mountain is and is not.' They would think, 'The banana is. I will eat the banana. There is no banana. I want another banana.' (UA)
'... you’ve got a lot of time for abstract thought when you’ve got your hand stuck up in a dead badger.' (JD)
'But there are causes worth dying for,’ said Butterfly.
‘No, there aren’t! Because you’ve only got one life but you can pick up another five causes on any street corner!’ ‘Good grief, how can you live with a philosophy like that?’ Rincewind took a deep breath. ‘Continuously!' (IT) Rincewind sighed. He’d tried to make his basic philosophy clear time and again, and people never got the message.
'Don’t you worry about to,' he said. 'In my experience that always takes care of itself. The important word is away.' (E) 'I fink, derefore I am. I fink.' (WMC)
He envied those philosophers. They nodded to their gods and then by degrees, destroyed them. (TG)
'The poet Hoha once dreamed he was a butterfly, and then he awoke and said, “Am I a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or am I a butterfly dreaming he is a man?”‘ said Lobsang, trying to join in.
‘Really?’ said Susan briskly. ‘And which was he?’ ‘What? Well…who knows?’ ‘How did he write his poems?’ said Susan. ‘With a brush, of course.’ ‘He didn’t flap around making information-rich patterns in the air or laying eggs on cabbage leaves?’ ‘No one ever mentioned it.’ ‘Then he was probably a man,’ said Susan. (TOT) EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS STAYS HAPPENED.
‘What kind of philosophy is that?’ THE ONLY ONE THAT WORKS. (H) There may, as the philosopher says, be no spoon, although this begs the question of why there is the idea of soup. (TOT)
It wasn’t that they didn’t take an interest in the world around them. On the contrary, they had a deep, personal and passionate involvement in it, but instead of asking, ‘Why are we here?’they asked, ‘Is it going to rain before the harvest?’
A philosopher might have deplored this lack of mental ambition, but only if he was really certain about where his next meal was coming from. (CJ) |
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