Top 80 Martha Nussbaum Quotes

Fear and monarchy pair nicely. But democracy means you have to work with people you may not like but you must still believe are your equals. And a fearful people never trust the other side.

I’m very passionate about political issues, but I also think that listening to people who disagree is extremely important, and I try to build that into my teaching, sometimes by co-teaching with rightwing colleagues.

Every single university student should study philosophy. You need to lead the examined life and question your beliefs. If you don’t learn critical thinking, then political debate degenerates into a contest of slogans.

American men do have genuine reasons for anxiety. The traditional jobs that many men have filled are disappearing, thanks to automation and outsourcing. The jobs that remain require, in most cases, higher education, which is increasingly difficult for non-affluent families to afford.

Politicians are at a great distance from the academic world. Barack Obama was my colleague at Chicago – but could i ever talk to him now? Never.

Emotions aren’t just mindless urges; they contain thoughts about matters of importance.

Disgust and shame are inherently hierarchical; they set up ranks and orders of human beings. They are also inherently connected with restrictions on liberty in areas of non-harmful conduct.

It’s always been intriguing to me, the loveability of mortality.

To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, the ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control that can lead you to be shattered.

I don’t waste time despising people.

In my experience and observation, senior appointments are rarely based entirely on merit.

I thought as an actress I would be able to have broader emotional experiences, but then I quickly figured out that I wanted to think about tragic dramas, not act in them.

This is my Achilles heel. If some Internet technician is on the phone with me and he’s being irrational and incompetent and stupid, I get really mad and I can sort of feel my blood pressure going up.

Giving children the sense that you always ought to speak up for what’s right, even if it costs you something, that’s something you can do.

In my case, I give a lot to animal welfare because I think that’s pretty neglected in America.

Mob rule is always extremely dangerous for the future of democracy.

We see unreasoning fear driving a certain amount of public policy, perhaps more in Europe than in the U.S.

Envy, propelled by fear, can be even more toxic than anger, because it involves the thought that other people enjoy the good things of life which the envier can’t hope to attain through hard work and emulation.

My high school did not offer courses in philosophy, so the books that initially stimulated philosophical reflection in me were novels by Charles Dickens, Henry James, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

In my experience and observation, senior appointments are rarely based entirely on merit.

It’s easy to think that college classes are mainly about preparing you for a job. But remember: this may be the one time in your life when you have a chance to think about the whole of your life, not just your job.

Well, I’m trained as a classicist, so I like to read the Greeks and Romans.

I can run a long distance very slowly and I do a half marathon every year.

Envy, propelled by fear, can be even more toxic than anger, because it involves the thought that other people enjoy the good things of life which the envier can’t hope to attain through hard work and emulation.

My high school did not offer courses in philosophy, so the books that initially stimulated philosophical reflection in me were novels by Charles Dickens, Henry James, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

You can’t have a democracy when people don’t learn to put themselves in the shoes of another person, who can’t think what their policies mean for others.

Teaching has always been a very important part of my life. It is one of the ways I contribute to society. It is also a source of energy and insight.

I wouldn’t express anything without being very thoughtful.

I’d like to be a student in Rabindranath Tagore’s school in Santiniketan in around 1915, dancing in the dance-dramas he wrote.

At Chicago I offer a course on Emotion, Reason and the Law that law students just love. But I am not there as a lawyer, my job is to teach philosophy.

Well, I’m trained as a classicist, so I like to read the Greeks and Romans.

I find so often, you know, just on a very mundane level; you’ve got a meeting and your child’s acting in a school play. You can’t do both things. And it’s not simply that you can’t do both, but whatever you do, you’re going to be neglecting something that’s really important.

Disgust and shame are inherently hierarchical; they set up ranks and orders of human beings. They are also inherently connected with restrictions on liberty in areas of non-harmful conduct.

I don’t waste time despising people.

Suppose you endow a charity, or university. You could put your name on it, but you could also endow it in honor of some teacher you had. People differ. There are people who prefer to be anonymous in their giving, or to put somebody else’s name on it.

Often, we feel helpless in lots of situations in our lives. The way anger gets a grip on us is it seems to be a way to extricate ourselves from helplessness.

I think that it’s rational to fear your own death or to fear harm to your family.

Among the good and decent men, some are unprepared for the surprises of life, and their good intentions run aground when confronted with issues like child care.

You have to address anger, fear, and then to think about what the alternatives are: hope, faith, a certain kind of brotherly love. And then you have to set yourself to cultivate those.

Disgust is often more deeply buried than envy and anger, but it compounds and intensifies the other negative emotions.

There were several men who had blazed the trail for talking about emotions in philosophy; otherwise my work would have had even more opposition than it did.

Some emotions are essential to law and to public principles of justice: anger at wrongdoing, fear for our safety, compassion for the pain of others, all these are good reasons to make laws that protect people in their rights.

Men are angry at women because they aren’t doing what they are supposed to do, which is support men. They are in the workplace claiming their own rights and often outdoing men. They are daring to bring charges of sexual assault and harassment. They are just not behaving themselves!

To be sure Plato did not favor ‘affirmative action’ to fill political and military offices in his own society; nor did he enroll women in his school.

What all emotions have in common, and what distinguishes them from bodily appetites, is a focus on an object and a view of that object as salient for one’s life.

I think a lot of people get hope through civic organizations and through their churches.

I’m very upset that the Supreme Court ruled that citizens don’t have standing to challenge the faith based initiatives on constitutional grounds.

Men in particular think that they have achieved something if they can make a woman mad, particularly if she is calm and intellectual.

I love fashion, and I simply enjoy good design in clothes and regard that as one of my hobbies.

I’d like to be a student in Rabindranath Tagore’s school in Santiniketan in around 1915, dancing in the dance-dramas he wrote.

The first thing you get from the humanities, when they’re well taught, is critical thinking. Philosophy in particular can play that role, not just in universities but in schools as well.

Knowledge is not a guarantee of good political behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior.

To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, the ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control that can lead you to be shattered.

People – and I think this is particularly true of Americans – don’t like to be passive. They like to seize control.

I am very impatient.

Emotions aren’t just mindless urges; they contain thoughts about matters of importance.

Disgust for the female body is always tinged with anxiety, since the body symbolizes mortality.

Every single university student should study philosophy. You need to lead the examined life and question your beliefs. If you don’t learn critical thinking, then political debate degenerates into a contest of slogans.

All of us, whether we are ignorant of philosophy or professors of philosophy, find it easier to follow dogma than to think.

Martin Luther King and Gandhi were not people who failed in self-respect. They were people of hope and great courage, and their courage was disciplined.

Mob rule is always extremely dangerous for the future of democracy.

Men in particular think that they have achieved something if they can make a woman mad, particularly if she is calm and intellectual.

I love to exercise.