Someone was once telling the famous Philosophy professor and wit Sidney Morgenbesser, that he is so busy he doesn't even know if he exists. Morgenbesser responded "Think a little".
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Another time someone was explaining how a double negative can be a positive but a double positive is never a negative. Morgenbesser immediately said dismissively "yeah yeah".
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He was was hit over the head at a demonstration. He was asked if it was unjust and unfair. He said that it was unjust but it was fair b/c everybody else got hit in the head as well.
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A student once said "I don't understand". He shot back "why should you have an advantage over me?"
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He noticed a Columbia faculty member who was trying to obscure his Jewishness. He said "Your motto is incognito ergo sum".
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In the 1970′s, a student of Maoist inclination asked him if he disagreed with Chairman Mao’s saying that a proposition can be true and false at the same time. Dr. Morgenbesser replied, “I do and I don’t.”
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In response to Heidegger’s ontological query “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Morgenbesser answered “If there were nothing you’d still be complaining!”
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When asked his opinion of the philosophy of pragmatism, Morgenbesser said, “It’s all very well in theory but it doesn’t work in practice.”
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He said to B.F. Skinner, “Let me get this straight: Your objection to traditional psychology is that it anthropomorphizes human beings?”
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He was furious at one of his philosophical colleagues for suggesting that religion was nothing but a palliative, a placebo. “The Lubavitcher Rebbe,” he thundered, “has more anguish in one night than you’ll have in your entire life.”
