top of page
.png){kind=small}
"In many cases it is a matter for decision and not a simple matter of fact whether x understands y; and so on."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Decision-Making quotes
"There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either."
"It is only in our decisions that we are important."
"You must not make hasty decisions because they make you do what you would not have done normally."
"One thing that most comic artists avoid is showing decisions. They show action, sure, and they show results, but they don't show (because it's difficult to show) the hero or the villain making a choice."
"It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good."
"See that the President, the Cabinet and staff are informed. If cut out of the information flow, their decisions may be poor, not made, or not confidently or persuasively implemented."
"The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years."
"Listen to the desires of your children. Encourage them and then give them the autonomy to make their own decision."
"The two important things I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision."
Explore more quotes by John Searle
"Our tools are extensions of our purposes, and so we find it natural to make metaphorical attributions of intentionality to them; but I take it no philosophical ice is cut by such examples."
"We often attribute 'understanding' and other cognitive predicates by metaphor and analogy to cars, adding machines, and other artifacts, but nothing is proved by such attributions."
"Where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there is no distinction between the observation and the thing observed."
"An utterance can have Intentionality, just as a belief has Intentionality, but whereas the Intentionality of the belief is intrinsic the Intentionality of the utterance is derived."
"I want to block some common misunderstandings about "understanding": In many of these discussions one finds a lot of fancy footwork about the word "understanding.""
"Berkeley had a liberal element in the student body who tended to be quite active. I think that's in general a feature of intellectually active places."
"Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself."
"I will argue that in the literal sense the programmed computer understands what the car and the adding machine understand, namely, exactly nothing."
"There are clear cases in which "understanding" literally applies and clear cases in which it does not apply; and these two sorts of cases are all I need for this argument."
bottom of page