Best 2580 quotes in «philosophical quotes» category

There are things I have wanted so long that I would only consent to have them if I could keep wanting them.

The reason Buddhism can be so naturalised is because, stripped of its supernatural elements, its core teachings can be giving a sound, secular philosophical interpretation. In other words, it becomes a religion acceptable to the contemporary, naturalistic mind only when it ceases to be a religion.

There have been a number of philosophers who have reveled in the dismantling of truth. I think they did so with good ethical motives, and for good philosophical reasons. I can see the sense in what they were talking about; the idea that truth is often claimed by elites in order to further certain agendas. They crowd-out alternative perspectives - particularly those of the powerless. But the undermining of truth contributed - in the weird, indirect way that philosophy contributes to the culture - to a rejection of the idea of truth as having any kind of proper meaning at all.

[T]here is a methodological bias in favor of taking natural discourse literally, other things being equal. For example, unless there are clear reasons for construing discourse as ambiguous, elliptical, or involving special idioms, we should not so construe it.

The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.

There is a worry that many have expressed that, on the naturalistic way of approaching philosophical questions, philosophy will somehow be co-opted by science. I'm not much worried about this.

There is a very common, though also very silly, picture of Kant according to which as empirical beings we are not free at all, and we are free only as noumenal jellyfish floating about in an intelligible sea above the heavens, outside any context in which our supposedly "free" choices could have any conceivable human meaning or significance. Part of the problem here is that Kant faces up honestly to the fact that how freedom is possible is a deep philosophical problem to which there is no solution we can rationally comprehend.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

There is in Albert Camus’ literary craftsmanship a seductive intelligence that could almost make a reader dismiss his philosophical intentions if he had not insisted on making them so clear.

There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.

There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and they may after all be the best key to life's significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.

There is a form of poetic and esthetic and moral genius necessary to make philosophical issues truly incandesce for students, and even though I indeed had some world-class professors myself when I went through the curriculum, I rarely saw such gnosic or concretist/poetic passion among them. I am not speaking of broad histrionics or melodramatic delivery, but rather a moral investment of concern, of loving delight and pathos in exposing one's consciousness to the full horrific and magnificent implications of the materials.

There is more to be learnt from every page of David Hume than from the collected philosophical works of Hegel, Herbart, and Schleiermacher are taken together.

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

There is no harm in repeating a good thing.

There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.

There is no exercise of the intellect which is not, in the final analysis, useless. A philosophical doctrine begins as a plausible description of the universe; with the passage of the years it becomes a mere chapter if not a paragraph or a name in the history of philosophy.

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

THERE is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavour the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretence of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality. When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false; but it is not certain that an opinion is false, because it is of dangerous consequence. Such topics, therefore, ought entirely to be forborne; as serving nothing to the discovery of truth, but only to make the person of an antagonist odious.

There is no one who can give you wiser advice than you can give yourself: you will never make a slip, if you listen to your own heart.

There is no tomorrow. There is only a planet turning on its axis, and a creature given to optimistic fancies.

There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies.

There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.

There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.

There's a snake lurking in the grass.

There's no greater sign of being a poor philosopher and wise man than wanting all of life to be wise and philosophical.

There is the question of language. Although the play [Candid] is not written in strict verse form, there is an underlying beat of rhyming couplets, with echoes of Pope and the tradition of eighteenth-century philosophical verse.

The result of civilization, at the Sandwich Islands and elsewhere, is found productive to the civilizers, destructive to the civilizees. It is said to be compensation--a very philosophical word; but it appears to be very much on the principle of the old game, "You lose, I win": good philosophy for the winner.

There's something in life that's a curtain, and I keep trying to raise it.

There is today-in a time when old beliefs are withering-a kind of philosophical hunger, a need to know who we are and how we got here. It is an on-going search, often unconscious, for a cosmic perspective for humanity

The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.

The role of empirical work in informing our philosophical theories, as I see it, is not that it gives us a better view of our folk concepts, but that it gives us a better view of knowledge, and the mind, and so on.

There was never a wise saying that couldn't be made wiser by adding the words, "and vice-versa.

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.

The revolutionary spirit is mighty convenient in this, that it frees one from all scruples as regards ideas. Its hard absolute optimism is repulsive to my mind by the menace of fanaticism and intolerance it contains. No doubt one should smile at these things; but, imperfect Esthete, I am no better Philosopher. All claim to special righteousness awakens in me that scorn and anger from which a philosophical mind should be free.

The same word passed through three minds, simultaneously, philosophical, fatalistic, the eternal refuge of the Italian: Pazienza.

The Scripture was written to shew unto men the kingdom of God; and to prepare their minds to become his obedient subjects; leavingthe world, and the Philosophy thereof, to the disputation of men, for the exercising of their natural Reason.

The sense of historical continuity, and a feeling for philosophical rectitude cannot, however, be compromised.

These dreams reminded me that, since I wished some day to become a writer, it was high time to decide what sort of books I was going to write. But as soon as I asked myself the question, and tried to discover some subject to which I could impart a philosophical significance of infinite value, my mind would stop like a clock, my consciousness would be faced with a blank, I would feel either that I was wholly devoid of talent or perhaps that some malady of the brain was hindering its development.

The sense that the meaning of the universe had evaporated was what seemed to escape those who welcomed Darwin as a benefactor of mankind. Nietzsche considered that evolution presented a correct picture of the world, but that it was a disastrous picture. His philosophy was an attempt to produce a new world-picture which took Darwinism into account but was not nullified by it.

The silkworm spins out his life, and, wrapping himself in his labor, dies.

The severity of the laws prevents their execution.

The science of systematics has long been affected by profound philosophical preconceptions, which have been all the more influential for being usually covert, even subconscious.

The so-called mysteries of quantum mechanics are in its philosophical interpretation, not in its mathematics.

The sole "property" of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside the mind.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.

The spirit of Plato dies hard. We have been unable to escape the philosophical tradition that what we can see and measure in the world is merely the superficial and imperfect representation of an underlying reality.

The spirit of poetry combines the profundity of the philosopher and the child's delight in bright pictures.