Best 15727 quotes in «philosophy quotes» category

The reason I can't follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind.

There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be.

There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philosophy there must be action; the strong hand finishes what the idea has sketched.

The redistribution of wealth creates dependence on the people to whom it is redistributed, it doesn't incentivize them to create their own wealth.

There exists in society a very special class of persons that I have always referred to as the Believers. These are folks who have chosen to accept a certain religion, philosophy, theory, idea or notion and cling to that belief regardless of any evidence that might, for anyone else, bring it into doubt. They are the ones who encourage and support the fanatics and the frauds of any given age. No amount of evidence, no matter how strong, will bring them any enlightenment. They are the sheep who beg to be fleeced and butchered, and who will battle fiercely to preserve their right to be victimized.

Therefore, philosophy does not give sense in mind happiness. It keeps in mind the only truth. However, it is very possible that the truth may be painful, may be distressing, may be destructive of happiness or makes it impossible. Religion, unlike philosophy, is under the category of the useful one. It promises happiness and says what it is necessary to do and what it is necessary to be to deserve or to obtain it. Consequently, illusion is more important than truth if it gets happiness.

The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life-that is the heart of existentialism.

The registering of doubts hath two excellent uses: the one, that it saveth philosophy from errors and falsehoods; when that which is not fully appearing is not collected into assertion, whereby error might draw error, but reserved in doubt: the other, that the entry of doubts are as so many suckers or sponges to draw use of knowledge; insomuch as that which, if doubts had not preceded, a man should never have advised, but passed it over without note, by the suggestion and solicitation of doubts, is made to be attended and applied.

There follows a little obscenity here, a dash of philosophy there, considerable whining overall, and a modern satirical novel is born.

There have always been people during periods of history that thought that we could get along with the enemy if only we would reach out. Peace in our time is a philosophy.

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.

There has never been a philosophy, a theory or a doctrine, that attacked (or 'limited') reason, which did not preach submission to the power of some authority.

There is a bizarre notion according to which it is claimed that because men are corrupt, it is necessary to give certain of them all the more power... on the contrary, they must be given less power.

There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.

There is a continuum between science and philosophy. As Fichte said (but did not practice), philosophy should be the science of sciences.

There is a desire deep within the soul which drives man from the seen to the unseen, to philosophy and to the divine.

There is almost no evidence that diagnoses such as 'schizophrenia' and 'bipolar disorder' correspond to discrete entities ('natural kinds' in the language of philosophy).

There is also a philosophy of less-is-more, and a little dignity that never hurt anybody. There are many qualities to admire about our father's generation.

There is always a philosophy for lack of courage.

There is always some accident in the best things, whether thoughts or expressions or deeds. The memorable thought, the happy expression, the admirable deed are only partly ours.

There is a ... matter - much more valuable and divine than natural philosophy . ... On this matter I must speak to you in enigmas.

There is an Arabic writer who wrote philosophy and poetry and who brought all religions and all the world together.

There is a new philosophy for weapons: it's more expensive to hurt people than to kill people. It's terrible. When you have a band of guys on the battlefield, if someone is dead, he's dead. If someone is injured then they have to take care of him, so six people are busy.

There is an ocean of endless opportunities, and there are so many things that one can do. I'm so fortunate that I've grown up with this sort of a philosophy and mentality.

There is a saying that no man has tasted the full flavour of life until he has known poverty, love and war. The justness of this reflection commends it to the lover of condensed philosophy. The three conditions embrace about all there is in life worth knowing. A surface thinker might deem that wealth should be added to the list. Not so. When a poor man finds a long-hidden quarter-dollar that has slipped through a rip into his vest lining, he sounds the pleasure of life with a deeper plummet than any millionaire can hope to cast.

There is a saying in Bali: "We have no art. We do everything as beautifully as possible." This reflects my philosophy of practice. I try to remember daily what a gift it is to have the privilege of living in this wondrous world.

There is a tendency among many shallow thinkers of our day to teach that every human act is a reflex, over which we do not exercise human control. They would rate a generous deed as no more praiseworthy than a wink, a crime as no more voluntary than a sneeze. . . Such a philosophy undercuts all human dignity. . . All of us have the power of choice in action at every moment of our lives.

There is a truth in Schopenhauer’s view that philosophy is an organism, and that a book on philosophy, with a beginning and end, is a sort of contradiction. ... In philosophy matters are not simple enough for us to say ‘Let’s get a rough idea’, for we do not know the country except by knowing the connections between the roads.

There is a stream, a succession of states, or waves, or fields (or whatever you please to call them), of knowledge, of feeling, of desire, of deliberation, etc., that constantly pass and repass, and that constitute our inner life.

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

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 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 in each of us a stream of tendency, whether you choose to call it philosophy or not, which gives coherence and direction to thought and action. Judges cannot escape that current any more than other mortals.

There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his [sic] activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.

There is, indeed a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are corrected by common sense and reflection.

There is, in fact, no teaching without learning.

..there is need for a person to be generally educated. Otherwise you shrivel up much too soon. Whether this means reading the bible (I read the New Testament every few years) or reading the great 19th century novelists (the greatest and shrewdest judge of people and of society who ever lived), or classical philosophy (which I cannot read-it puts me to sleep immediately), or history (which is secondary). What matters is that the knowledge worker, by the time he or she reaches middle age, has developed and nourished a human being rather than a tax accountant or a hydraulic engineer.

There is more hope in a heather rose than in all the tons of Teutonic philosophy.

There is more in a human life than our theories of it allow. Sooner or later something seems to call us onto a particular path. You may remember this "something" as a signal moment in childhood when an urge out of nowhere, a fascination, a peculiar turn of events struck like an annunciation: This is what I must do, this is what I've got to have. This is who I am.

There is much else in the literary idiom of nature-philosophy: nothing-buttery, for example, always part of the minor symptomatology of the bogus.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

There is no monster more destructive than the inventive mind that has outstripped philosophy.

There is no good talking to him," said a Dragon-fly, who was sitting on the top of a large brown bulrush; "no good at all, for he has gone away." "Well, that is his loss, not mine," answered the Rocket. "I am not going to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention. I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying." "Then you should definitely lecture on Philosophy," said the Dragon-fly.

There is no one kind of thing that we 'perceive' but many different kinds, the number being reducible if at all by scientific investigation and not by philosophy: pens are in many ways though not in all ways unlike rainbows, which are in many ways though not in all ways unlike after-images, which in turn are in many ways but not in all ways unlike pictures on the cinema-screen--and so on.

There is no more certain way to deter employment than to harass and penalize employers.

There is no more open door by which you can enter into the study of natural philosophy than by considering the physical phenomena of a candle

There is no muse of philosophy, nor is there one of translation.

There is no other start to philosophy but wonder.

There is no philosophy that will help us to succeed if we doubt our ability to do so.

There is no difference in principle, ... between the economic philosophy of Nazism, socialism, communism, and fascism and that of the American welfare state and regulated economy.