“What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats?”

“"What's your name," Coraline asked the cat. "Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?"
"Cats don't have names," it said.
"No?" said Coraline.
"No," said the cat. "Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names."”

“Of the origin of things we know nothing, and can know nothing. Perfection does not reveal itself to us as existent in the beginning; but as something that ought to be, something new which we are to help create. Somehow the secret of the universe is hidden in our breast. Somehow the destinies of the universe depend upon our exertions.”

“As much as we have free choice, absolute destiny is immutable. What is meant to happen does, through one measure or another.”

“A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.”

“Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.”

“A cat for a hat, or a hat for a cat. But nothing for nothing.”

“I think the idea of white privilege is absolutely reprehensible. And it's not because white people aren't privileged. You know, we have all sorts of privileges, and most people have privileges of all sorts, and you should be grateful for your privileges and work to deserve them, I would say. But, the idea that you can target an ethnic group with a collective crime, regardless of the specific innocence or guilt of the constituent elements of that group, there is absolutely nothing that's more racist than that. It's absolutely abhorrent.”

“Then arose the sect of the Gnostics—men who know — who laid claim to the possession of a perfect science, and who, if they were to be believed, had discovered the true formula for what philosophers called 'the Absolute.' But these speculative Gnostics were rejected by the conservative and orthodox Christians of their day as fiercely as their successors the Agnostics —men who don't know—are rejected by the orthodox in our own.”

“Riddle of destiny, who can show
What thy short visit meant, or know
What thy errand here below?”