Top 80 Martha Nussbaum Quotes

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

Clothing that covers the body can be comfortable or uncomfortable, depending on the fabric. In India I typically wear a full salwaar kameez of cotton, because it is superbly comfortable, and full covering keeps dust off one’s limbs and at least diminishes the risk of skin cancer.

It is easier to treat people as objects to be manipulated if you have never learned any other way to see them.

The imagination is an innate gift, but it needs refinement and cultivation; this is what the humanities provide.

Fear requires belief that you will be harmed, and it is easily manipulated by rhetoric.

I am very impatient.

As an undergraduate, I studied the Greek and Roman classics, and I went to graduate school in classics intending to work on the presentation of moral issues in various Greek and Roman tragedies.

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

As an undergraduate, I studied the Greek and Roman classics, and I went to graduate school in classics intending to work on the presentation of moral issues in various Greek and Roman tragedies.

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.

I don’t waste time despising people.

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.

I wake up at night thinking about Euripides’ ‘Hecuba.’ That to me is a story that says so much about what it is to be a human being in the middle of a world of unreliable things and people.

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.

There’s nothing illogical, it seems to me, about saying, ‘I am going to care deeply about my work and my writing. I’m also going to care deeply about my family and my child.’

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.

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.

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

If people think that women only wear the burqa because of coercive pressure, let them create ample opportunities for them, at the same time enforce laws making primary and secondary education compulsory, and then see what women actually do.

I wish a person with a record of competence such as Nitish Kumar would get a chance to lead India.

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

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

There is no reason why an American scholar cannot by himself or herself develop an adequate understanding of another culture. And I don’t find any reason to suppose that the birth within a culture automatically confers understanding.

I worked among many famous philosophers, and I tried to observe how they treated students. I knew which ones I wanted to be like, and which ones I didn’t.

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

I don’t want to talk about the regulation of financial markets because that is not my sphere of expertise. It’s a very complicated topic, and if I have written a number of books they are always on topics that I think I know something about.

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.

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.

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.

When I am disgusted by certain American politicians, I fantasize moving away to Finland – a country in which I have worked a little, and which I see as a pure blue and green place of unpolluted lakes, peaceful forests, and pristine social-democratic values.

When we feel helpless later in life, fear makes us scapegoat others. Instead of fixing the problems, we say, ‘Oh, it’s all their fault – those women or immigrants are infesting our country.’ Rather than useful protest or constructive solutions, we get angry at these handy targets.

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

I enjoy intellectual companionship.

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

I think ageing is challenging, surprising, fun, and full of friendship, so that is the approach I’ll take, objecting to the stigmatization of ageing in so many modern societies.

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.

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

I love to exercise.

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.

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.

This is true across every single society; we project grossness onto a racial or gender subgroup or caste. A big part of social subordination and discrimination is to ascribe hyper-animality to other groups and use that as an excuse for subordinating them further.

People shouldn’t be teaching if they break appointments, if they behave in an irresponsible way. I try to be down-to-earth and sensible. I want students to know I’m going to work for all of them and not play favorites and that I’m really going to do my work.

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.

You have to connect your work to what people are doing. A good way is to construct a bridge between theory and practice – Amartya Sen and I tried this by founding the Human Development and Capabilities Association where practitioners meet theoreticians and their discourse influences practice.

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

I am not a pacifist – I think that violence and self-defence are often morally justified.

I wouldn’t express anything without being very thoughtful.

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 think that Muslims are criticised all around the world.

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

When we have emotions of fear and pity toward the hero of a tragedy, we explore aspects of our own vulnerability in a safe and pleasing setting.

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

I am not a pacifist – I think that violence and self-defence are often morally justified.

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.

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

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

People shouldn’t be teaching if they break appointments, if they behave in an irresponsible way. I try to be down-to-earth and sensible. I want students to know I’m going to work for all of them and not play favorites and that I’m really going to do my work.

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.

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.

I enjoy intellectual companionship.

This is true across every single society; we project grossness onto a racial or gender subgroup or caste. A big part of social subordination and discrimination is to ascribe hyper-animality to other groups and use that as an excuse for subordinating them further.

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

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

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.

It’s always easier for people to face backward than to face forward.

I wouldn’t express anything without being very thoughtful.

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

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.

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.

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.

If you look into the religions, they have this deep idea of human dignity and the source of dignity being conscience.

It’s a form of human love to accept our complicated, messy humanity and not run away from it.

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

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.

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

With inheritances, it’s really important not to give the impression that you’re extorting your children, and one way you can not do that is to make it clear to them that you’re not leaving the whole of your estate to them at all, but to various charitable organizations.

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.

If you look into the religions, they have this deep idea of human dignity and the source of dignity being conscience.

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.