“There’s the bit where you say it and the bit where you take it back.”
— J.L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia

Descartes:

“If I look out of the window and see men crossing the square, as I just happen to have done, I normally say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax. Yet do I see any more than hats and coats which could conceal automatons? I judge that they are men.”

“For what is more self-evident than the fact that the Supreme Being exists, or that God, to whose essence alone existence belongs, exists?”

Kant:

This enlightenment requires nothing but freedom — and the most innocent of all that may be called “freedom”: freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters. Now I hear the cry from all sides: “Do not argue!” The officer says: “Do not argue–drill!” The tax collector: “Do not argue–pay!” The pastor: “Do not argue–believe!” Only one ruler in the world says: “Argue as much as you please, but obey!”