Quote

Our emotional life maps our incompleteness: A creature without any needs would never have reasons for fear, or grief, or hope, or anger.

Martha C. Nussbaum

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Martha C. Nussbaum
Never
Grief
Would
Creatures
Life
Emotional
Hope
Incompleteness
Fear
Maps
Reason
Creature
Without
Reasons
Needs
Anger

More quotes by Martha C. Nussbaum

Image
Today, I think, the state of philosophizing about democracy is very healthy. It bridges political science and philosophy, as it should.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
People don't just want to feel satisfied. They actually want to act.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
I think the imagination helps us move out of the purely oppositional mentality and see the world in a richer and more variegated way.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
If you really do want to increase women's status, you could focus on just that, but you'd probably better focus also on women's education. Access to artificial contraception, I would say, is also a very important determinant of women's status.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
Philosophers should be, as Seneca put it, 'lawyers for humanity'. Make what you think and feel count the examined life has global dimensions.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
There's a gap in perceptions between women and men. Women feel much freer than they did, but still, when alcohol is involved, especially, there's a lot of sexual assault, and a lot of confusion about that. So, we need to focus a lot more on what consent is and on the importance of affirmative consent.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
But the life that no longer trust another human being and no longer forms ties to the political community is not a human life any longer.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
TV has a lot of problems, but I think the Internet and social media have a lot more. Under the cover of anonymity people say the most vicious things.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
The great philosophers of the past who wrote so beautifully - Rousseau, John Stuart Mill - had to write beautifully because they had to sell their work to journals. They had to sell books to the general public because they could not hold positions in universities. Mill was an atheist, and, therefore, could not hold a position in a university.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
The humanities prepare students to be good citizens and help them understand a complicated, interlocking world. The humanities teach us critical thinking, how to analyze arguments, and how to imagine life from the point of view of someone unlike yourself.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
In our swamp of media sensationalism and group-speak, BOSTON REVIEW stands out as a bold voice for reason and argument, one of the very, very few places that offers intelligence, integrity, and variety.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
Life is about more than earning a living, and if you're not in the habit of thinking about it, you can end up middle-aged or even older and shocked to realize that your life seems empty.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
I do think there's a lot of bad writing, and I worry about that in philosophy. I worry about it even more in literary studies, but I wouldn't blame it on any one methodology.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
Choice matters. You might have the opportunity to eat a nutritious diet, though you might choose to eat a lousy diet. What matters is the opportunity.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
I think we need government to play a part in having a health policy that makes nursing care available for the increasing numbers who are going to need it.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
Business leaders love the humanities because they know that to innovate you need more than rote knowledge. You need a trained imagination.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
Singapore and China, which don't want to encourage democratic citizenship, are expanding their humanities curricula. These reforms are all about developing a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
Economists get impatient with philosophy. They are often trained as skilled mathematicians. They don't like going back to ordinary language and first principles.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Image
I am a very big fan of the nation, actually. In Cicero's time, there was this idea that although we were members of the whole world of human beings, we also needed to connect our imaginations to a smaller unit. The smaller unit was something we knew we could live or die for, as Cicero died for the Roman republic.
Martha C. Nussbaum