Armchair intellectuals Quotes

“The armchairs, with their flat, sedentary cushions, were designed for society, but the bed was made for solitude. It had a straitened and measured narrowness, an austere frame made to contain the curves of a single body, to circumscribe it, carry it, give it a place, and when I slept at night, I possessed it entirely.”

“Most journeys are armchair calculations strategically charted in some reclined state that are designed to allow us to embark upon a grand journey without ever leaving the armchair. However, real journeys are absent of furniture.”

“As the sky prepares to settle its tired, aching feetinto the night’s velvet slippersI settle, into my armchair, soaking the teabag,of my thoughts, into warm liquidy stars.”

“If truth be told, the easy road is nothing more than an armchair in clever disguise. And if you look around, it seems that there are a whole lot of people in the furniture business.”

“When you're dealing with these forces or powers in a philosophic and scientific way, contemplating them from an armchair, that rationalistic approach is useful. It is quite profitable then to regard the gods and goddesses and demons as projections of the human mind or as unconscious aspects of ourselves. But every truth is a truth only for one place and one time, and that's a truth, as I said, for the armchair. When you're actually dealing with these figures, the only safe, pragmatic and operational approach is to treat them as having a being, a will, and a purpose entirely apart from the humans who evoke them. If the Sorcerer's Apprentice had understood that, he wouldn't have gotten into so much trouble.”

“476. Children do not learn that books exist, that armchairs exist, etc.,etc. - they learn to fetch books, sit in armchairs, etc.,etc.Later, questions about the existence of things do of course arise, "Is there such a thing as a unicorn?" and so on. But such a question is possible only because as a rule no corresponding question presents itself. For how does one know how to set about satisfying oneself of the existence of unicorns? How did one learn the method for determining whether something exists or not?477. "So one must know that the objects whose names one teaches a child by an ostensive definition exist." - Why must one know they do? Isn't it enough that experience doesn't later show the opposite?For why should the language-game rest on some kind of knowledge?478. Does a child believe that milk exists? Or does it know that milk exists? Does a cat know that a mouse exists?479. Are we to say that the knowledge that there are physical objects comes very early or very late?”

“I have an armchair interest in gardening, but I don't like to get my knees dirty. I don't have a garden.”

“Those mausoleums of inactive masculinity are places for men who prefer armchairs to women.”

“The true philosopher is a man who says "All right," and goes to sleep in his armchair.”

“The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.”