Philosophers Funny Quotes

Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.

A relationship is likely to last way longer, if each partner convinces or has convinced themselves that they do not deserve their partner, even if that is not true.

The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. 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 expanded because, at that point, the bar closed.

To be a philosopher, just reverse everything you have ever been told...and have a sense of humor doing it.

A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his vocation without having to think about other people.

Some people avoid thinking deeply in public, only because they are afraid of coming across as suicidal.

Some of us were brought into this troubled world primarily or only to increase our fathers’ chances of not being left by our mothers, or vice versa.

If we had to earn our age by thinking for ourselves at least once a year, only a handful of people would reach adulthood.

A premature death does not only rob one of the countless instances where one would have experienced pleasure, it also saves one from the innumerable instances where one would have experienced pain.

The most upsetting thing about Society’s attitude towards disabled people is that many millions of disabled people became disabled while trying to please Society, the very same bitch that secretly regards them as subhuman.

To be, or not to be: what a question!

Let your eyes talk, mouth listens and ear sleeps.

Life is a process during which one initially gets less and less dependent, independent, and then more and more dependent.

Some people hate people who are overconfident, only because their overconfidence reminds them of their underconfidence.

Most sane human beings who are over the age of six usually act or react not as per what they genuinely feel or really think but in accordance with the expectations of those around them.

We are way less likely to love someone just because they love us than we are to hate someone just because they hate us.

Patriotism is the narcissism of countries.

Some people will hate you for not loving them.

Not everyone who talks less or keeps quiet whenever they are with or around you does that because they find you interesting or knowledgeable; some people do that because they find you boring or ignorant.

Adults who use big words in order to seem intelligent are annoying, especially those who are not intelligent.

The world economy would collapse if a significant number of people were to realize and then act on the realization that it is possible to enjoy many if not most of the things that they enjoy without first having to own them.

Some people are only funny when they try to be serious.

The fact that the person who you are sleeping with is also sleeping with another person or other people does not necessarily mean that he or she does not love you. And the fact that you are the only person who someone is sleeping with does not necessarily mean that he or she loves you.

I don’t even pretend to believe I know everything; I just believe in arguments God told me I had a pretty good chance of winning, while I was traveling through hell.

Most men would no longer enjoy conversing with most women if they stopped bringing their vaginas along.

Among other possibilities, money was invented to make it possible for a foolish man to control wise men; a weak man, strong men; a child, old men; an ignorant man, knowledgeable men; and for a dwarf to control giants.

Death devours not only those who have been cooked by old age; it also feasts on those who are half-cooked and even those who are raw.

In some cases, you can tell how somebody is being treated by their own boss from the way they are treating someone to whom they are a boss.

In reality most human beings are not, to most human beings, more important than money.

If we were not impressed by job titles, suits, and jargon, we would demand that financial advisors show us their personal bank statements before they tell us what we could or should do with our own money.

Bigheadedness is usually a symptom of small-mindedness.

Many if not most slaves would have each readily jumped, and many if not most slaves would each readily jump, at the opportunity to be a master, if such an opportunity presents or had presented itself.

Death would not surprise us as often as it does, if we let go of the misbelief that newborns are less mortal than the elderly.

The average adult has had sex innumerable times more than they have formed an opinion of their own.

The last time everyone loved or at least liked everyone was when the world had a population of about 4.

To some believers, being on the pill or using a condom is a nonverbal way of telling God to go to hell.

A seemingly simple task like taking a bath or wearing a condom feels like multitasking to someone who suffers from hemiplegia or has only one hand.

Being rich or famous is the only profound thing that some people have ever said.

Not a few millions of parents strongly hope that their own children will step in by instantly becoming their own parents’ foster parents, if and when the parents reach their second childhood.

I’d given him bits and pieces of my peculiar life, but colored softer and funnier than they had been. I’d painted my dad as Don Quixote in a semi, on a quest for philosophical truths and the best cup of coffee in the nation.

Many a survivor of a plane crash who is or was against cannibalism and had never eaten human flesh once found themselves in a situation where they had to either eat human flesh, or go the way of all flesh.

Millions of business people are each constantly forced to choose between their desire to not be a bad person and their desire to be a good business person, that is to say, to make as much money as they possibly can by maximizing their revenue while minimizing the cost of producing whatever it is that they sell.

Most human beings strongly believe that money is way less important than the life of a human being, but in reality five hundred, fifty, or even five dollars are way more important to the lives of most human beings than the lives of most human beings.

Greed is a contagious mental illness without which civilization as we know it would not have been possible.

There is nothing morally wrong with buying stolen goods, unless you know that they were stolen.

I mean really, how could an artistic individual stay grounded in the nitty-gritty of how many minutes per pound meat has to stay in the oven when trying to fathom the creative philosophy behind the greatest artistic minds of the world?

Loneliness tortures many if not most of the elderly more intensely and more frequently than it torments many if not most of us who will never be or have not yet been pushed or pulled into old age.

Many a parent, sad to say, has used their child as an opportunity for them, the parent, to do, through their child, something or some of the things that they, the parent, did not do or did not do successfully.

Some people are each holding on to a lover of theirs who no longer loves them and/or who they no longer love, only because they do not want to have a reason or another reason to be jealous of the person who would eventually be their lover if they let go of them.

We, in the interest of the so-called progress, have been persuaded to leave the production and at times the cooking of our food to companies whose owners and employees make a living by exploiting our busyness or laziness and our innate hunger to continue living.

Love is as we will it to be." ~ Amunhotep El Bey

Good man and bad man with money goes a long ways." ~ Amunhotep El Bey

Although they probably know that some children were used and some children are used as miners, most adults are ignorant of the chocolate industry’s use of minors.

Most human beings would have never been pained by the death of a human being if they had never seen a human being or pretending to be pained by that.

For a sane person to sincerely be happy that someone has succeeded, they have to either be profiting or likely to profit from that person’s success, or be that person.

Most of us cling to life as if our existence were a result of our deed or choice.

There is something stunningly narrow about how the Anthropic Principle is phrased. Yes, only certain laws and constants of nature are consistent with our kind of life. But essentially the same laws and constants are required to make a rock. So why not talk about a Universe designed so rocks could one day come to be, and strong and weak Lithic Principles? If stones could philosophize, I imagine Lithic Principles would be at the intellectual frontiers.

Most sane human beings who have managed to attain and retain fame each uses it to dramatically increase their name’s chances of being remembered until Jesus comes back, since their heart cannot do what they consciously or unconsciously lust for, that is to say, for it to beat until Jesus returns.

For their never-ending endeavours to obtain or retain wealth, countries desperately need companies, because they—unlike most human beings—have the means of production, and human beings, because they—unlike all companies—have the means of reproduction.

Many millions of pregnancies—many if not most of which have each led to the birth of at least one child—were each used as nothing but a conspicuous means to a secret end called the evasion of abortion.

Orpheus never liked words. He had his music. He would get a funny look on his face and I would say what are you thinking about and he would always be thinking about music. If we were in a restaurant sometimes Orpheus would look sullen and wouldn't talk to me and I thought people felt sorry for me. I should have realized that women envied me. Their husbands talked too much. But I wanted to talk to him about my notions. I was working on a new philosophical system. It involved hats. This is what it is to love an artist: The moon is always rising above your house. The houses of your neighbors look dull and lacking in moonlight. But he is always going away from you. Inside his head there is always something more beautiful. Orpheus said the mind is a slide ruler. It can fit around anything. Show me your body, he said. It only means one thing.

When selecting a one-night stand, a heterosexual woman who is materialistic is a trillion times more likely to choose a sexually unattractive poor man who seems rich over a sexually attractive rich man who seems poor.

To ask a man whether or not he has a girlfriend is to talk about his sex life. If you disagree with that, then how in the name of God do you differentiate between a man’s girlfriend and a girl that is a friend to the man?

As we all know, as if forever exploiting or attempting to exploit each other were not enough, a group of sane human beings who have just reached the end of a war against a common enemy of theirs will sooner or later start or continue killing and/or fighting against each other.

Without a sense of humour one's wisdom is but a rumour.

When you are unhappy, happy people are disgusting.

Some of our problems came to us; some, we went to them.

Don't, but if at all, then, lie to the whole damn world - never to your own damn, silly stupid self.

Boredom is probably more frequent and more tormenting if you do not have sight or hands.

I am not trying to be funny, it is just that you're a joke.

Just like how most if not all poor boys look up to and aspire to someday be rich men, most if not all underdeveloped and developing countries look up to and aspire to someday be developed countries.

The hardest thing about being a woman isn’t menstruation or giving birth. It’s resisting the pressure to love handbags, makeup, high heels … and men.

His mentality was dressed up as a moral code, but when naked, was simply a preference.

Most people are but a fake-art, and as real as a concealed fart.

Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Don't, and the world laughs at you.

Before you call a spade a spade, dig a big hole for yourself.

If you can't laugh at yourself, maybe you're not funny

It goes without saying that even those of us who are going to hell will get eternal life—if that territory really exists outside religious books and the minds of believers, that is. Having said that, given the choice, instead of being grilled until hell freezes over, the average sane human being would, needless to say, rather spend forever idling in an extremely fertile garden, next to a lamb or a chicken or a parrot, which they do not secretly want to eat, and a lion or a tiger or a crocodile, which does not secretly want to eat them.

More often than not, an inspirational or motivational speaker is someone who makes money from telling us that we can do all of the things that we can do … and pretty much all of the things that we cannot do.

Even if the intelligent design of some structure has been established, it still is a separate question whether a wise, powerful, and beneficent God ought to have designed a complex, information-rich structure one way or another. For the sake of argument, let's grant that certain designed structures are not simply, as Gould put it, "odd" or "funny," but even cruel. What of it? Philosophical theology has abundant resources for dealing with the problem of evil, maintaining a God who is both omnipotent and benevolent in the face of evil.

If you seriously believe that your imaginary guy up in the sky told you to kill people of a differing faith and religion, your illusory pal is a dickhead. And of course and therefore, analogically speaking, so are you, shithead.

And then we heard a branch break. It might have been a deer, but the Colonel busted out anyway. A voice directly behind us said, "Don't run, Chipper," and the Colonel stopped, turned around, and returned to us sheepishly. The Eagle walked toward us slowly, his lips pursed in disgust. He wore a white shirt and a black tie, like always. He gave each of us in turn the Look of Doom. "Y'all smell like a North Carolina tobacco field in a wildfire," he said. We stood silent. I felt disproportionately terrible, like I had just been caught fleeing the scene of a murder. Would he call my parents? "I'll see you in Jury tomorrow at five," he announced, and then walked away. Alaska crouched down, picked up the cigarette she had thrown away, and started smoking again. The Eagle wheeled around, his sixth sense detecting Insubordination To Authority Figures. Alaska dropped the cigarette and stepped on it. The Eagle shook his head, and even though he must have been crazy mad, I swear to God he smiled. "He loves me," Alaska told me as we walked back to the dorm circle. "He loves all y'all, too. He just loves the school more. That's the thing. He thinks busting us is good for the school and good for us. It's the eternal struggle, Pudge. The Good versus the Naughty." "You're awfully philosophical for a girl that just got busted," I told her. "Sometimes you lose a battle. But mischief always wins the war.

Vivian’s first impression of Solidago was that she had travelled back in time, but not to a time where architecture had been invented. All houses were twisted out of shape, to say the least. Windows either too large to open or too small to make a difference peppered the city in places one would never dream of having one. The walls were mostly cast in brickwork by the kind of stonemason whose day job was financial advising. Skewed walls with more bricks than mortar, knotted chimneys keeping the smoke inside and cupping rooftops whose main purpose was to gather rainwater – Solidago had it all and more. As the oldest civilization of the cosmos, Alarians might have been excellent at healing, philosophizing and weaving into the fabric of reality, but they were very poor city builders.

I'm a serious sort of fella. But don't tell me your pal up in the sky exists, and mine does not. Then, my middle finger gets offended! For, my buddy up there nowhere, Mr. NOT, too insists without proof, that he is. Same as your god. Is Mr. NOT nuts? If he is, are you not?

Most experts today subscribe to some variations of the incongruity theory, the idea that humor arises when people discover there's an inconsistency between what they expect to happen and what actually happens. Or, as seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal put it when he first came up with the concept, "Nothing produces laughter more than a surprising disproportion between that which one expects and that which one sees.

Why was he doing this? So that life could continue in the metro? Right. So that they could grow mushrooms and pigs at VDNKh in the future, and so that his stepfather and Zhenkina’s family lived there in peace, so that people unknown to him could settle at Alekseevskaya and at Rizhskaya, and so that the uneasy bustle of trade at Byelorusskaya didn’t die away. So that the Brahmins could stroll about Polis in their robes and rustle the pages of books, grasping the ancient knowledge and passing it on to subsequent generations. So that the fascists could build their Reich, capturing racial enemies and torturing them to death, and so that the Worm people could spirit away strangers’ children and eat adults, and so that the woman at Mayakovskaya could bargain with her young son in the future, earning herself and him some bread. So that the rat races at Paveletskaya didn’t end, and the fighters of the revolutionary brigade could continue their assaults on fascists and their funny dialectical arguments. And so that thousands of people throughout the whole metro could breathe, eat, love one another, give life to their children, defecate and sleep, dream, fight, kill, be ravished and betrayed, philosophize and hate, and so that each could believe in his own paradise and his own hell . . . So that life in the metro, senseless and useless, exalted and filled with light, dirty and seething, endlessly diverse, so miraculous and fine could continue.

We are perhaps the funniest shattered pieces of the ongoing cosmic explosion; and the biggest troublemakers!

Only children and fools expect wisdom from each and every old person.

Philosophers, Poets and Fools have similar Consciousness

Am Anfang war Gott? It may have been true, but it was not germane.

If water was beer I'd be a teetotaler

Of course I love you. For real. I will sure come and personally meet you myself. Just to make sure you're well. When is your funeral?

Little people make tall claims. As being this-that avatar or messiah. Some even say they're God. Well, if they are, I'm their grand-pop.

To really know a person criticize his god. And he'll show you who he is not.

I am really, truly dead serious when I am just joking. But only if you're a joke would you mind my poking.

I do not want to sound cynical or condescending, but your lips are moving, your mind unbending.

People who say they do not regret anything in their life, for the next birth too should get the very same wife.

Millions of sane people would each be sexually attracted to their own parent or child if they were not related to them.

As an unavoidable result of the inevitable loss of some physical and/or some mental abilities, many a man who has been alive for many years has become a boy again.

I have to tell you the truth. But you are too ugly for it.

Do not believe in a god who is as silly, and meaner than you. For, that would surely be your higher-self, and your stupid alter-ego.

There is no human-like god. If there were, he'd be as silly as you.

Some people would have killed themselves and/or someone else if they were single; and some people would not have done that.

The thing with politicians is that though they spit differently yet they shit similarly.

Yeah, I assure you I hear you perfectly. But my ears don't do so as deftly.

Come over,’ he said. ‘I’ll order in Chinese.’ ‘You speak Chinese now?’ ‘Funny guy, Libor. Be here at eight.’ ‘You sure you’re up for it?’ ‘I’m a philosopher, I’m not sure about anything.’..

More often than not, expecting to lose weight without first losing the diet that made the weight loss necessary is like expecting a pig to be spotless after hosing it down while it was still rolling in mud.

Please pardon me if I have somehow overlooked you. Normally I am rather conscientious about all jokes. I apologize if I have yet not gotten to you. I will, soon. So, please don't lose faith in me. Or my jokes.

Socrates was a funny little Greek man best known for forgetting to write things down and for screaming, "Look, I'm a philosopher!" in the middle of a No Philosophy zone. (He was later forced to eat his words. Along with some poison.)

Believing in God makes one humble … and arrogant: those who do give their actions and their abilities way less credit than they really deserve, and are inevitably left with the unshakable belief that they are way more important to life than they actually are.

It's funny how all the wisest people on Earth always comes back to this thought, know thyself, thy body, thy mind, they soul, thy emotions, thy history, thy spirit... the only knowledge that will ever serve you is the knowledge you yourself know of, and hopefully put into practice.

It's funny how all the wisest people on Earth always comes back to this thought, know thyself, thy body, they mind, they soul, thy emotions, thy history, thy spirit... the only knowledge that will ever serve you is the knowledge you yourself know of, and hopefully put into practice.

Some technologies have made it possible for one to travel to the other side of the world in order to see something, whereas some technologies have made that unnecessary: if it were not for things such as the camera and the internet, some African boys would have never seen a Chinese woman’s vagina.

More often than not, these attempts at sociability ended in painful silence. His old friends, who remembered him as a brilliant student and wickedly funny conversationalist, were appalled by what had happened to him. Tom had slipped from the ranks of the anointed, and his downfall seemed to shake their confidence in themselves, to open the door onto a new pessimism about their own prospects in life. It didn't help matters that Tom had gained weight, that his former plumpness now verged on an embarrassing rotundity, but even more disturbing was the fact that he didn't seem to have any plans, that he never spoke about how he was going to undo the damage he'd done to himself and get back on his feet. Whenever he mentioned his new job, he described it in odd, almost religious terms, speculating on such questions as spiritual strength and the importance of finding one's path through patience and humility, and this confused them and made them fidget in their chairs. Tom's intelligence had not been dulled by the job, but no one wanted to hear what he had to say anymore, least of all the women he talked to, who expected young men to be full of brave ideas and clever schemes about how they were going to conquer the world. Tom put them off with his doubts and soul-searchings, his obscure disquisitions on the nature of reality, his hesitant manner. It was bad enough that he drove a taxi for a living, but a philosophical taxi driver who dressed in army-navy clothes and carried a paunch around his middle was a bit too much to ask. He was a pleasant guy, of course, and no one actively disliked him, but he wasn't a legitimate candidate?not for marriage, not even for a crazy fling.

It didn’t occur to him to think that better is not the same as well. Was he fooling himself? He would not have said so. Even at twenty-two, when his diagnosis was confirmed, he was realistic. Most suffer. Everyone dies. He knew how, if not when. Now more than ever, he was determined to cheat the Fates of entertainment, but naturally, his time would come. When it did, he believed he would accept death as Socrates had: with cool philosophical distance. He would say something funny, or profound, or loving. Then he would let life fall gracefully from his hands. Horseshit, as James Earp would say, of the highest order. The truth is this. On the morning of August 14, 1878, Doc Holliday believed in his own death exactly as you do—today, at this very moment. He knew that he was mortal, just as you do. Of course, you know you’ll die someday, but … not quite the same way you know that the sun will rise tomorrow or that dropped objects fall. The great bitch-goddess Hope sees to that. Sit in a physician’s office. Listen to a diagnosis as bad as Doc’s. Beyond the first few words, you won’t hear a thing. The voice of Hope is soft but impossible to ignore. This isn’t happening, she assures you. There’s been a mix-up with the tests. Hope swears, You’re different. You matter. She whispers, Miracles happen. She says, often quite reasonably, New treatments are being developed all the time! She promises, You’ll beat the odds. A hundred to one? A thousand to one? A million to one? Eight to five, Hope lies. Odds are, when your time comes, you won’t even ask, “For or against?” You’ll swing up on that horse, and ride.

You see, religion is really a kind of second womb. It’s designed to bring this extremely complicated thing, which is a human being, to maturity, which means to be self-motivating, self-acting. But the idea of sin puts you in a servile condition throughout your life. MOYERS: But that’s not the Christian idea of creation and the Fall. CAMPBELL: I once heard a lecture by a wonderful old Zen philosopher, Dr. D. T. Suzuki. He stood up with his hands slowly rubbing his sides and said, “God against man. Man against God. Man against nature. Nature against man. Nature against God. God against nature—very funny religion!

What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Philosophers have pondered that question for centuries. I'm afraid the answer is disappointingly simple: Mating. That's it. Christians seem to think that life is a test, and that the goal is to get into Heaven. But that's like saying your job is to get a promotion. No, your job is to work. And then, if you worked hard, then you get promoted. Heaven is supposed to be a reward or promotion, for a job well done. And what's our job? "Be fruitful and multiply." We are here to mate and procreate. That's it. That's all there's to it. That's the meaning of life. Mating.

When I was a kid watching comedians on TV and listening to their records they were the only ones that could make it all seem okay. They seemed to cut through the bullshit and disarm fears and horror by being clever and funny. I don't think I could have survived my childhood without watching stand-up comics. When I started doing comedy I didn't understand show business. I just wanted to be a comedian. Now, after twenty-five years of doing stand-up and the last two years of having long conversations with over two hundred comics I can honestly say they are some of the most thoughtful, philosophical, open-minded, sensitive, insightful, talented, self-centred, neurotic, compulsive, angry, fucked-up, sweet, creative people in the world.

The proper attitude toward human activity and climate is expressed in the 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Consider the following passage, where industrialist-philosopher Francisco d’Anconia remarks to steel magnate Hank Rearden how dangerous the climate is, absent massive industrial development. The conversation takes place indoors at an elegant party during a severe storm (in the era before all severe storms were blamed on fossil fuels). There was only a faint tinge of red left on the edge of the earth, just enough to outline the scraps of clouds ripped by the tortured battle of the storm in the sky. Dim shapes kept sweeping through space and vanishing, shapes which were branches, but looked as if they were the fury of the wind made visible. “It’s a terrible night for any animal caught unprotected on that plain,” said Francisco d’Anconia. “This is when one should appreciate the meaning of being a man.” Rearden did not answer for a moment; then he said, as if in answer to himself, a tone of wonder in his voice, “Funny . . .” “What?” “You told me what I was thinking just a while ago . . .” “You were?” “. . . only I didn’t have the words for it.” “Shall I tell you the rest of the words?” “Go ahead.” “You stood here and watched the storm with the greatest pride one can ever feel—because you are able to have summer flowers and half-naked women in your house on a night like this, in demonstration of your victory over that storm. And if it weren’t for you, most of those who are here would be left helpless at the mercy of that wind in the middle of some such plain.

Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don't find very funny, do things they don't particularly want to, with people whose company they don't particularly enjoy. Not me. I had decided, years ago, that if the choice was between that or flying solo, then I'd fly solo. It was safer that way. Grief is the price we pay for love, so they say. The price is far too high.

What do you see when you look in the Mirror?' 'I? I see myself holding a pair of thick woollen socks.' Harry stared. 'One can never have enough socks,' said Dumbledore. 'Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.

You, douche bags! Do not blame God. As a thumb rule, know that all evil thoughts are your own. And all good thoughts are God’s own. Own up, you, nutcases!

The most important mystery of ancient Egypt was presided over by a priesthood. That mystery concerned the annual inundation of the Nile flood plain. It was this flooding which made Egyptian agriculture, and therefore civilisation, possible. It was the centre of their society in both practical and ritual terms for many centuries; it made ancient Egypt the most stable society the world has ever seen. The Egyptian calendar itself was calculated with reference to the river, and was divided into three seasons, all of them linked to the Nile and the agricultural cycle it determined: Akhet, or the inundation, Peret, the growing season, and Shemu, the harvest. The size of the flood determined the size of the harvest: too little water and there would be famine; too much and there would be catastrophe; just the right amount and the whole country would bloom and prosper. Every detail of Egyptian life was linked to the flood: even the tax system was based on the level of the water, since it was that level which determined how prosperous the farmers were going to be in the subsequent season. The priests performed complicated rituals to divine the nature of that year’s flood and the resulting harvest. The religious elite had at their disposal a rich, emotionally satisfying mythological system; a subtle, complicated language of symbols that drew on that mythology; and a position of unchallenged power at the centre of their extraordinarily stable society, one which remained in an essentially static condition for thousands of years. But the priests were cheating, because they had something else too: they had a nilometer. This was a secret device made to measure and predict the level of flood water. It consisted of a large, permanent measuring station sited on the river, with lines and markers designed to predict the level of the annual flood. The calibrations used the water level to forecast levels of harvest from Hunger up through Suffering through to Happiness, Security and Abundance, to, in a year with too much water, Disaster. Nilometers were a – perhaps the – priestly secret. They were situated in temples where only priests were allowed access; Herodotus, who wrote the first outsider’s account of Egyptian life the fifth century BC, was told of their existence, but wasn’t allowed to see one. As late as 1810, thousands of years after the nilometers had entered use, foreigners were still forbidden access to them. Added to the accurate records of flood patters dating back centuries, the nilometer was an essential tool for control of Egypt. It had to be kept secret by the ruling class and institutions, because it was a central component of their authority. The world is full of priesthoods. The nilometer offers a good paradigm for many kinds of expertise, many varieties of religious and professional mystery. Many of the words for deliberately obfuscating nonsense come from priestly ritual: mumbo jumbo from the Mandinka word maamajomboo, a masked shamanic ceremonial dancer; hocus pocus from hoc est corpus meum in the Latin Mass. On the one hand, the elaborate language and ritual, designed to bamboozle and mystify and intimidate and add value; on the other the calculations that the pros make in private. Practitioners of almost every métier, from plumbers to chefs to nurses to teachers to police, have a gap between the way they talk to each other and they way they talk to their customers or audience. Grayson Perry is very funny on this phenomenon at work in the art world, as he described it in an interview with Brian Eno. ‘As for the language of the art world – “International Art English” – I think obfuscation was part of its purpose, to protect what in fact was probably a fairly simple philosophical point, to keep some sort of mystery around it. There was a fear that if it was made understandable, it wouldn’t seem important.

..."I know it is a trick, I mean a dupe, but still - Do you ever make him talk to you, alone? the two of you? No, that's silly, isn't it." "Not at all." Istvan pauses, considering, smiling, Rupert or Decca would recognize that smile. Finally "He sleeps," says Istvan, "with a black cloth across his face. It keeps his soul primed.... Does that give you your answer?" and before she can give him hers, continues: "They are toys, philosophical toys, as we are puppets really, to our base desires. Don't you see the same, in that Blue Room of yours? What man owns his soul in there? Does he not instead give it into your hands, to manipulate as you do his prick?" "Turn it like a crank," says Lucy, suddenly grinning, a funny wolfish look Istvan has never seen her wear: it surprises him into laughter, both of them chuckling as "We are so much alike, you and I," he says, bending to kiss her cheek. "Both of us vendors of the art of the moment, the impermanent pleasure, the will-o'-the-wisp that lifts a man from the prison of time, and for just that moment sets him free...

The funny thing about life. Is that you are always judged by the people who don't know you. Their conviction about you makes others believe that you are the way they judge you.

I am yet to hear someone claim that a salary is nothing but a number.

Some technologies have made it possible for one to travel to the other side of the world in order to see something, whereas some have made that unnecessary: if it were not for things such as the camera and the Internet, some African boys would have never seen a Chinese woman’s vagina.

She had devoted time to improving her reading and was now more than proficient. The shelf she'd first cleared with Bianca overflowed with tales of King Arthur and his knights, Ovid's poetry, plays by Sophocles, Aristotle and Aeschylus, Apuleius, names she loved repeating in her mind because the mere sound of them conjured the drama, pageantry, passion, transformations and suffering of their heroes and heroines. One of her favorite writers was Geoffrey Chaucer-- his poems of pilgrims exchanging stories as they traveled to a shrine in Canterbury were both heart aching and often sidesplittingly funny. Admittedly, one of the reasons she loved Chaucer was because she could read him for herself. It was the same reason she picked up Shakespeare over and over, and the works of Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne. They all wrote in English. Regarded as quite the eccentric, the duchess was a woman of learning who, like Rosamund, was self-taught. Her autobiography, A True Relation of my Birth, Breeding and Life, a gift from Mr. Henderson, gave Rosamund a model to emulate. Here was a woman who dared to consider not only philosophy, science, astronomy and romance, but to write about her reflections and discoveries in insightful ways. Defying her critics, she determined that women were men's intellectual equal, possessed of as quick a wit and as many subtleties if only given the means to express themselves-- in other words, access to education.

i'm going to bed before either of you come up with another great idea to get us killed or worse, EXPELLED

The truthful—though unhelpful—answer to the question: "How did we come by our primary knowledge of causality?" is that in learning to speak we learned the linguistic representation and application of a host of causal concepts. Very many of them were represented by transitive and other verbs of action used in reporting what is observed. Others—a good example is "infect"—form, not observation statements, but rather expressions of causal hypotheses. The word "cause" itself is highly general. How does someone show that he has the concept cause? We may wish to say: only by having such a word in his vocabulary. If so, then the manifest possession of the concept presupposes the mastery of much else in language. I mean: the word "cause" can be added to a language in which are already represented many causal concepts. A small selection: scrape, push, wet, carry, eat, burn, knock over, keep off, squash, make (e.g. noises, paper boats), hurt. But if we care to imagine languages in which no special causal concepts are represented, then no description of the use of a word in such languages will be able to present it as meaning cause. Nor will it even contain words for natural kinds of stuff, nor yet words equivalent to "body", "wind", or "fire". For learning to use special causal verbs is part and parcel of learning to apply the concepts answer to these and many other substantives. As surely as we learned to call people by name or to report from seeing it that the cat was on the table, we also learned to report from having observed it that someone drank up the milk or that the dog made a funny noise or that things were cut or broken by whatever we saw cut or break them.

In some cases, inheritance is nothing but an act of paying one’s dues with a credit card.

Its funny that some people were undermining the people who were doing distance learning and online studies, but now because of COVID 19 , everyone wants to do online and distance learning. Never undermine what you don't know, because that might be your future or might be what you need to succeed. Also it is never too late to study or to learn something new.

All men, at some level or the other, are liars. Fortunately there is a cure. They can all become a fine creature, provided their nuts are taken off with pliers.

An effective one line philosopher offers deep, funny or relatable soundbites that start the conversation, not end it.

The world is in trouble because of a few funny sympathetic philosophers

Were I but perfectly normal, I would just not be.

I love religious nuts. They make me remember I have them too. So, being a health nut, I scratch them religiously. Just as I do my butt.

So, am I too, like all other humans, just a rogue? Sure! Just a notch less than those rascals wearing godly robes.

Just like you silly bums, I have a personal sky god. I bow to him, as you do to your airy-fairy sod. He prefers I call him Mr. NOT.

I'm joking when I say I'm the grand-pop of those claiming to be an avatar-messiah or god. But if they're serious, then, I am who I am.

How did I get IT? Well, I had the balls enough to cry, howl and beg for 'It'. This is the only Way. Get it!

And all this terrible change had come about because he had ceased to believe himself and had taken to believing others. This he had done because it was too difficult to live believing one's self; believing one's self, one had to decide every question not in favour of one's own animal life, which is always seeking for easy gratifications, but almost in every case against it. Believing others there was nothing to decide; everything had been decided already, and decided always in favour of the animal I and against the spiritual. Nor was this all. Believing in his own self he was always exposing himself to the censure of those around him; believing others he had their approval. So, when Nekhludoff had talked of the serious matters of life, of God, truth, riches, and poverty, all round him thought it out of place and even rather funny, and his mother and aunts called him, with kindly irony, notre cher philosophe. But when he read novels, told improper anecdotes, went to see funny vaudevilles in the French theatre and gaily repeated the jokes, everybody admired and encouraged him.

(...) wizards still have not found a way of reuniting body and soul once death has occurred. As the eminent wizarding philosopher Bertrand de Pensées-Profondes writes in his celebrated work A Study into the Possibility of Reversing the Actual and Metaphysical Effects of Natural Death, with Particular Regard to the Reintegration of Essence and Matter: “Give it up. It’s never going to happen.

It’s a funny thing in this world that one’s thought of failure is another’s thought of success.

It’s funny how a once big problem, can soon seem so insignificant.

Religious nuts believe the 'others', that is you and I, are but dogs. That we infidels do not bow to their diotic god. What if one says the dog is one's god? And all must prostrate before it. Wouldn't one be mad to so insist? So too is a fellow who says another must bow to his god.

Evolution could be true. Apes lick their nuts. Religious nuts do too.

So, as per your ism people like I are going to hell? My friend up there nowhere, Mr. NOT, says its is all your imaginary pal's crap! And that up there in the head, you're not all that well. Now, what do you day to that? Anyway, be well.

I’m warning you now, boy – any funny business, anything at all – and you’ll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas.

Smile, you're alive.

Humans for most part are boorish, boastful, and beasts. They're pretentious, piss-full, pussy-led and penis-full as their priests.

Frankly, and factually - people are just screwed up. Am I? Perhaps as much as you, more or less. But not that much as religious nuts. Thank God, I am just nuts.

Stop cribbing! Go, get a life. But then, perhaps you hate life. In that case, get a wife.

If I were not a Punjabi, I'd be a candy or jalebi.

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.

It’s funny,” said Mrs. Wiggins to her sisters, “but I kind of like to hear Mrs. Bean sing.” “I guess it doesn’t matter what a noise sounds like,” said Mrs. Wogus, “as long as you know that it means something nice.” Mrs. Wogus was inclined to be philosophical. That is, she liked talking without thinking much what she was talking about. But sometimes she said pretty wise things. Adoniram

This story created a sensation when it was first told. It appeared in the papers and many big Physicists and Natural Philosophers were, at least so they thought, able to explain the phenomenon. I shall narrate the event and also tell the reader what explanation was given, and let him draw his own conclusions. This was what happened. A friend of mine, a clerk in the same office as myself, was an amateur photographer; let us call him Jones. Jones had a half plate Sanderson camera with a Ross lens and a Thornton Picard behind lens shutter, with pneumatic release. The plate in question was a Wrattens ordinary, developed with Ilford Pyro Soda developer prepared at home. All these particulars I give for the benefit of the more technical reader. Mr. Smith, another clerk in our office, invited Mr. Jones to take a likeness of his wife and sister-in-law. This sister-in-law was the wife of Mr. Smith's elder brother, who was also a Government servant, then on leave. The idea of the photograph was of the sister-in-law. Jones was a keen photographer himself. He had photographed every body in the office including the peons and sweepers, and had even supplied every sitter of his with copies of his handiwork. So he most willingly consented, and anxiously waited for the Sunday on which the photograph was to be taken. Early on Sunday morning, Jones went to the Smiths'. The arrangement of light in the verandah was such that a photograph could only be taken after midday; and so he stayed there to breakfast. At about one in the afternoon all arrangements were complete and the two ladies, Mrs. Smiths, were made to sit in two cane chairs and after long and careful focussing, and moving the camera about for an hour, Jones was satisfied at last and an exposure was made. Mr. Jones was sure that the plate was all right; and so, a second plate was not exposed although in the usual course of things this should have been done. He wrapped up his things and went home promising to develop the plate the same night and bring a copy of the photograph the next day to the office. The next day, which was a Monday, Jones came to the office very early, and I was the first person to meet him. "Well, Mr. Photographer," I asked "what success?" "I got the picture all right," said Jones, unwrapping an unmounted picture and handing it over to me "most funny, don't you think so?" "No, I don't ... I think it is all right, at any rate I did not expect anything better from you ...", I said. "No," said Jones "the funny thing is that only two ladies sat ..." "Quite right," I said "the third stood in the middle." "There was no third lady at all there ...", said Jones. "Then you imagined she was there, and there we find her ..." "I tell you, there were only two ladies there when I exposed" insisted Jones. He was looking awfully worried. "Do you want me to believe that there were only two persons when the plate was exposed and three when it was developed?" I asked. "That is exactly what has happened," said Jones. "Then it must be the most wonderful developer you used, or was it that this was the second exposure given to the same plate?" "The developer is the one which I have been using for the last three years, and the plate, the one I charged on Saturday night out of a new box that I had purchased only on Saturday afternoon." A number of other clerks had come up in the meantime, and were taking great interest in the picture and in Jones' statement. It is only right that a description of the picture be given here for the benefit of the reader. I wish I could reproduce the original picture too, but that for certain reasons is impossible. When the plate was actually exposed there were only two ladies, both of whom were sitting in cane chairs. When the plate was developed it was found that there was in the picture a figure, that of a lady, standing in the middle. She wore a broad-edged dhoti (the reader should not forget that all the characters are Indians), only the upper half of her

I often wonder, how come fundamentalists of every religion have nutcases akin themselves as their god?

Know! I am the new age prophet of my pal up there, Mr. NOT. If you do not draw my picture my Mr. NOT shall butt-kick you nuts, as too your fancied bot up there nowhere, that silly naught!

Every religious nut must have his or her say, condemning the infidels to hell, every which way. But then so should those opposing them, lampooning these nutcases as they choose, or as they may.

Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again. ‘Up!’ she screeched. Harry heard her walking towards the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the cooker. He rolled on to his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorbike in it. He had a funny feeling he’d had the same dream before.

Yeah, but life can't be fascinating all the time.' 'Oh, honey. Mine is. If it gets boring for longer than two weeks, I make adjustments.' I smile right into her eyes. 'And it's paid off because I now live with Houndy, who is a lobsterman, and the thing about him is that he could talk to me for four days straight without stopping about lobsters and their shells and the different tides and the sky, and nothing he ever said would bore me because the language that Houndy uses is really speaking in is all about love and life and death and appreciation and gratitude and funny moments.' Her eyes flicker, and I see in her face that she knows exactly what I mean. 'I feel like that when I"m at work,' she says softly. 'I work in a nursery school, so I get to spend my days sitting on the floor with three-and-four-year-olds, talking. People think it must be the most boring thing in the world, but oh my God! They tell me about the most astonishing things. They get into philosophical discussions about their boo-boos and about how worms on the sidewalk get their feeling hurt sometimes, and why the yellow crayon is the meanest one but the purple one is nice. Can you believe it? They know the personalities of crayons.

Dr. Urbino was reluctant to confess his hatred of animals, which he disguised with all kinds of scientific inventions and philosophical pretexts that convinced many, but not his wife. ... (He said that) rabbits fomented greed, that monkeys carried the fever of lust, and that roosters were damned because they had been complicit in the three denials of Christ.

Now, you two – this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you’ve – you’ve blown up a toilet or –’ ‘Blown up a toilet? We’ve never blown up a toilet.’ ‘Great idea though, thanks, Mum.’ ‘It’s not funny. And look after Ron.

I am on a journey to Philosophy. I may not return with a sound mind.

In Funny Face, all it takes for the lovely Audrey Hepburn, a mousy intellectual in a Greenwich Village bookshop, to question her high-minded celibacy (“My philosophic search / Has left me in the lurch”) is a peck on the cheek from a character played by Fred Astaire. Not Cary Grant or Gary Cooper: Fred Astaire. Well, he has as much right to play a chick magnet as she has to play an existentialist, but when she falls for him she hasn’t even seen him dance; she’s only seen him trash her bookstore.

It's so funny that , it is those random stupid acts done. That give us the best memories in life.

They had a good time eating the Every-Flavour Beans. Harry got toast, coconut, baked bean, strawberry, curry, grass, coffee, sardine and was even brave enough to nibble the end off a funny grey one Ron wouldn’t touch, which turned out to be pepper.

They trigger creativity, because they make us so vulnerable and open our heart to become its large self. Buddhist philosopher Joanna Macy says that when your heart breaks, the universe can pour through. That is how it is. When the universe pours through, so, too, does the creativity of the universe. How many comedians are funny in spite of and because of deep tragedies in their life, which have opened their souls up to the ultimate paradoxes of living? Humor and paradox are often the only ways to respond to life’s sorrows with grace. Humor, too, seems built into the fabric of the universe, so filled with paradox and surprise and uncanny combinations.

God of blind believers is most likely to be cock-eyed.

Remember, you are as dispensable as the most indispensable king of kings, the mighty lord of silly worldly men.

Don't worry. Life goes on. With or without you. So, live it, while it's given you.

Those who advocate killing people of another religion or faith by labeling the latter as infidels are dick-heads; that too a bit too little.

Just now my god Mr. NOT kicked your imaginary pal's butt! If you did not hear of it but I did, should we at least agree that we both are nuts!

I'm going to start a religion in the name of my pal up there, Mr. NOT. I am going to call it nuttism. All nuts are welcome. And by that I mean you all, following every other nutty ism.

Religious nuts of the world, unite! I too will fly my kite. Let us set up a meet between your imaginary pal in the sky with my friend up there nowhere, Mr. NOT. We will let them slug it out. Whoever survives, will be our GOD! Long live the brotherhood of the nuts and naught!

If your believed-in god is patently more stupid than you, and you're yet following this buffoon; you're as silly, and an idiot too.

Please respect my ism, though I have none. I too will stay away from your crap. Surely it's fair play. Both of us should be okay with this. Or are you not?

I never lie to myself. If at times I'm an asshole, then, I admit to myself I've been so. This is how brutally truthful I am with myself. Only those who're assholes lie to themselves. Therefore, I am who I am - just a human. But of course, with an ass hole.

Really, you're not to blame. It is such a shame that your imaginary pal, your god is but a hateful, intolerant, misogynistic sod, akin the vilest of humans. So, per se it is not your fault. You're just a simple fellow following a distasteful simpleton. You're just being Him.

A rascal at any age is a rogue. Till the time he dies of old age.

Oh hell, yeah! It is rather good to be un-dead. You my dear friend, are welcome to be otherwise instead.

My pal up there nowhere, Mr. NOT, is really pissed with you. How dare you worship false gods, and not the one and only Mr. NOT?

I'd have kicked your ass as too your head were both not full of shit, butthead.

As far as you know, and that is not near enough, this is the only life given to you. So, do not screw it up. Do your bit, without harming others. That's godly enough. Just do not dump your shit, especially the religious kind, on others. Thank you.

Oh yeah, I love jokes. And oh! I love you. ~_~

We are all born idiots. Most of us never become any better. Hence, idiotically we live, die too in the same state as we were born . O' wise one, be not one of them!

I love you and your hate-spouting, utterly intolerant lovely little toad! Are you sure he is really the one and the only god? For, even an idiot could have done a better job, choosing a more sane little bugger off the road.

If you can count your friends - those who will miss you, perhaps shed a tear for you after you conk off - you're one lucky fellow. I guess I am lucky. Then again, who can tell? May be I will have to cut off a finger! For, who knows, in the passage of time, who turns yellow.

The quintessential 'make' of the Cosmos or Universe, is 'unity' and 'oneness'. Get it somehow, anyhow. Live accordingly. Or remain as you are. And die a dumbass. Your choice, douchebags.

If your believed in and imagined god or beloved self-proclaimed messiah behaves like a scoundrel, in all probability, my pal up in the sky says, you too are one such mongrel.

I will bow to your pal up in the sky if you too to my god, Mr. Not, say hi.

What was Fodor like? Funny you should ask that, as I had a little dust-up over at Daily Nous not long ago, with an old graduate-school friend, Samir Chopra, on the subject of Fodor, in a discussion thread about him, after he’d just died. It turns out that one thing I really liked about Fodor was what Chopra disliked the most about him, namely his (in my view) hilarious argumentative affect and manner. Some of the shit he would do in class and at colloquia was just legendary. One thing I remember was a philosophy of mind class, where a really wacko student – you know, the guy who everyone silently prays isn’t going to talk or ask a question – just said something completely bizarre – I think it was that material objects are “waves of probability” or something like that – and Fodor, looking tormented, staggered over to the wall, drew a square on it with a black marker, and began banging his head in the center of it, going “No, no, no….” I almost pissed myself, it was so hilarious. And the square stayed there long after, so you’d be in some other class, and people would ask, “Why is there a square drawn on the wall in marker?” and you’d get to tell the story and crack up all over again. Now Samir takes this sort of thing as evidence of just how what a meanie Fodor was and as representative of a kind of meanie philosophy that too many philosophers engage in, and he lamented how it “alienated” him. It was all very much in the mode of the current sensitivity-culture everyone seems to be in the grip of, which I just find humorless and precious and representative of everything about the current cultural moment that I can’t stand.

The truth is a farthing distance from god-ism and atheism. Were both of them, the religious nuts and the atheist bull-heads to stop farting, they would at the very least get a farthing of the Truth.

I lost the plot and bought myself an allotment

If you say your ancestral god is true, well then, my imaginary pal up there, Mr. NOT, is too. Oh! And my Mr. NOT says it is the duty of his ism's faithful to kick the butt of every other god, and of this illusory fellow's followers, like you. NOW, is ALL THIS it okay with YOU?

If your god, and following him, you see infidels, then, both dumb-heads must be examined. Maybe somebody else is playing the fiddle.

What could I possibly tell you. Religious nuts know it all. But for one thing - that they are butt-holes.