Philosophy

There's a beauty in the truth which is undeniable. It's a tragedy in a way- sometimes we just need to understand what the hell we've truly lost.

British artist known for provocative conceptual and autobiographical works

True art, real art, real creativity, comes from somewhere else. It isn't about a picture or decoration- there's a divinity to it…

British artist known for provocative conceptual and autobiographical works

Art is a vocation for me, not a career, not a job… you wouldn't say to a nun. 'so, how did you get into God?'

British artist known for provocative conceptual and autobiographical works

I'm 65 years old, and one of the things that amazes me is the number of people who work to get to a certain level of success in showbusiness, and then quit to go play golf?! There is nothing else I would want to do in this world.

Magician, Illusionist & Half of Penn & Teller Duo

When we were first able to make approximately what our fathers made by doing performance, we considered ourselves completely successful and had no ambition beyond that. If we were playing fairs and cruise ships, we were happy.

Magician, Illusionist & Half of Penn & Teller Duo

I'm interested in the 'modern' definition of magic which plays with epistemology, and the determinations we make about what's true, and what is real. The most important decisions you can make center around your perceptions of the world, and what makes you doubt them.

Magician, Illusionist & Half of Penn & Teller Duo

Magic is this incredibly weird bondage and discipline you make where you say to someone, 'do this thing to me that's morally wrong… you have my consent…' – once you give your consent, the morality changes.

Magician, Illusionist & Half of Penn & Teller Duo

We can take a hell of a lot more stress than we believe we can. We should learn how to fight not flight. And fight doesn't have to be a physical thing – it can be that you feel something's going to be uncomfortable 'okay well let's avoid it'. No, go through with it but go through with it in a progressive manner.

Boxing coach of Conor McGregor at Straight Blast Gym Dublin

It's like playing chess but while getting punched in the face.

Boxing coach of Conor McGregor at Straight Blast Gym Dublin

If you want to grow, you need to go through something uncomfortable and come out the other end. If you want to grow, you have to go forward in progressive steps. It should always be a little bit uncomfortable because otherwise there's no growth.

Boxing coach of Conor McGregor at Straight Blast Gym Dublin

We can expand our circle of sympathy – we can employ the logic of impartiality, and the emotional prompts of human contact and vicarious experience, and expand our fellow-feeling from our family to our clan, our nation, tribe, and from there to all of humanity and even other sentient beings.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

Our capacity to reason is recursive, combinatorial – we can reason about our reason – we can argue, criticise and develop tools that enhance our reason thanks to language and communication. We have the power to build on our reason, to enhance it.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

I cannot argue that my own interests are special simply because I'm me and you're not and expect that you will take me seriously. The nature of logic forces us to cede our own pre-eminence, because there is nothing in the pronoun 'you' or 'he' or 'she' which confers some special status.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

There has never been a time at which Enlightenment values predominated in any culture. They have always faced pushback from forces that are embedded in human nature – tribalism, deference to authority, magical thinking, vulnerability to cognitive illusions and biases.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

The theory describes only the way objects interact with one another, without indicating what happens between one interaction and the next one.

Theoretical physicist known for loop quantum gravity research and popular science writing

Quantum mechanics says our world is nebulous, fuzzy, a haze of possibilities until it somehow snaps to attention upon an appropriate interaction, observation or measurement. That's a very strange reality, and the fact that this theory is so demonstrably correct is radically important to our understanding.

Theoretical Physicist & Bestselling Author on String Theory & Cosmology