“Things exist either because they have recently come into existence or because they have qualities that made them unlikely to be destroyed in the past.”
More from Richard Dawkins on Philosophy
“Chance" is just a word expressing ignorance”
“We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realize that we are apes.”
“The fact that we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of something does not put existence and non-existence on an even footing.”
“People believe the only alternative to randomness is intelligent design.”
“I accept that there may be things far grander and more incomprehensible than we can possibly imagine.”
“Evolution never looks to the future.”
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
Others on Philosophy
Ludwig Wittgenstein
22 quotes“The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood.”
Christopher Hitchens
22 quotes“How much vanity must be concealed – not too effectively at that – in order to pretend that one is the personal object of...”
Nietzsche
22 quotes“One does not hate as long as one has a low esteem of someone, but only when one esteems him as an equal or a superior.”
Carl Jung
21 quotes“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”
Immanuel Kant
20 quotes“Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”
Heraclitus
19 quotes“All things flow nothing abides.”
H. L. Mencken
17 quotes“We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.”
C.S. Lewis
15 quotes“[Consciousness] is either inexplicable illusion, or else revelation.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
14 quotes“Consciousness is man's greatest misfortune, still I know that man loves it and will not exchange it for any satisfaction...”
Samuel Beckett
14 quotes“The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.”
Napoleon
14 quotes“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”
Isaac Asimov
13 quotes“Society is much more easily soothed than one's own conscience.”