Certainly, there is much to be gained by laboring over the complexities that pervade most philosophical writing. However, the act of reading such texts is almost always accompanied by head clutching and eye rubbing. It’s a daunting task to dive headfirst into Descartes or Nietzsche hoping to find some sort of answer to why the hell we’re all here. The sentences are often back-breaking; I actually felt physical pain, both in my head and gut during grad school while attempting close readings of Derrida and Foucault. The divot in my living room wall comes thanks to Of Grammatology, which I hurled angrily from my futon at least three times in a single restless night before mid-terms.

For me, there’s also a certain amount of guilt that accompanies understanding the great philosophers. I should have already gotten it all by now — or, at the very least, I should be able to butt into conversations at social gatherings with gems like, “Well, you know what Kant says …”, then walk away like a smug asshole.

So, in an effort to become such a person, I’ve distilled several philosophers’ ideas into single sentences apiece. (I fully expect lengthy hate mail from philosophy Ph.D.s.)