Philosophy Quotations

Philosophy Quotations

To consider what is true and what is good takes much

Philosophy is the science which considers truth. [Aristotle]

Do not necessarily seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought. [With Matsuo Basho]

Depth in philosophy brings men's minds about to religion. [Sir Francis Bacon]

'Tis well to have a theory, and sit in the centre of it. [Katharina of Holland]

A good point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. [With Bertrand Russell]

Everything flows and nothing stays. [Heraclitus]

Act like a man of thought. [Henri Louis Bergson]

It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen. [Aristotle]

Philosophy teaches us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of others. [Oscar Wilde]

My definition [of a philosopher] is of a man up in a balloon, with his family and friends holding the ropes which confine him to earth and trying to haul him down. [Louisa May Alcott, in Life, Letters, and Journals, ed. E.D. Cheney, 1889]

Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck [Immanuel Kant]

Being is in-itself. Being is what it is. [Jean Paul Sartre]

There is no statement so absurd that no philosopher will make it. [Cicero]

There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. [Oliver Goldsmith]

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world . . . and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands. [Plato]

Philosophy is the highest music. [Plato] (2)

Stay away from dwarfing arenas to let higher and ableness-aiding vistas open up

Good philosophers may also open a philosophy factory. (3)

I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of another boy. [Woody Allen :)]

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple. [ Dalai Lama:] (4)

A process of wonder has its steps and stages which should be meted out to help folks

Leisure can be one of the Mothers of Philosophy. [Cf. Thomas Hobbes]

Philosophy involves a state of fermentation, a process without fixed and final outcome. [With Esa Saarinen]

What we see is not all of reality in itself, but reality exposed to our method of questioning and modes of perception. [Cf. Werner Heisenberg]

When philosophic thought has done its best, much wonder should evolve.

For there was never yet philosopher, That could endure the toothache patiently. [William Shakespeare]

Here is the beginning of philosophy: a recognition of the conflicts between men, a search for their cause, a condemnation of mere opinion, and the discovery of a standard of judgment [Epictetus] (6).

To teach how to live with some uncertainty, yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is one of the chief things that philosophy can do. [With Bertrand Russell]

If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically [Jean Paul Sartre]

One of my favourite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. [Frank Zappa]

We live in a world in which politics has replaced philosophy. [Martin L. Gross]

Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to enduring fact of mystery. [Henry Miller]

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language [Ludwig Wittgenstein]

The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. [Niels Bohr]

There's a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker. [Charles M. Schulz]

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water [John W. Gardner]

You become responsible for a long time for what you've tamed. [cf. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince]

Philosophy can look like the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits. [Cf. William James]

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. [Aristotle] (7)

Leisure is the mother of Philosophy. [Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651]

Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you don't know. [Bertrand Russell]

Only that in you which is attuned to me can hear what I'm saying. [Cf. Baba Ram Dass]

Gist

1. To consider what is true and what is good takes much.
2. Stay away from dwarfing "college religion" to let higher and ableness-aiding vistas open up.
3. A process of wonder has its steps and stages which should be meted out to help folks