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

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

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.

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!

I think we've lost the idea that politicians are part of the humanities. And we think of them as part of a natural science tradition, and we don't expect them to have the contact with literature, with history, with the richness of descriptive language that the humanities have always stood for. And I think that's a great loss.

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

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 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.

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

I really disliked Philadelphia society - really, deeply disliked it. I spent a lot of my teenage years writing poetry attacking it.

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

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.

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

I enjoy intellectual companionship.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

If you've been betrayed by a spouse or a partner, it's much easier to focus on causing that person pain than it is to turn forward and actually create a life that's worthy of you in the future.

I listen to music. I particularly love Mozart.

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

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.

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'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.

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.

The U.S. has always understood itself to be united around political principles and not around culture, whereas the nations of Europe have a much more traditional conception of nationhood that is connected to romanticism, which thinks of religion and culture as ingredients of nationhood.

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

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

When I was four I joined a group of girls who were talking about their party dresses. I thought they were imagining, so I imagined a fantastic pink velvet dress with lots of jewels. But they were simply describing what they actually wore, and they had utter contempt for my obvious fiction. After that, I never joined a group again.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.'

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.

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

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

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

Most Americans do really think that Muslims all want to take over and they don't want democracy and they want nothing but Islamic law.

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.

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

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.

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

I love to exercise.

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.

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.