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Philosophy Quotes
"Living is no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness like a squirrel for example - I mean without looking for something beyond and above living, I mean living must be your whole occupation."
189
"It is the lot of man to share in the deeper aspirations of the universe around him and to share his own destiny as well as that of the universe, now by adjusting himself to its forces, now by putting the whole of his energy to his own ends and purposes."
189
"What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought'."
188
"It is a great advantage for a system of philosophy to be substantially true."
181
"Truth is a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, anthropomorphisms, in short a sum of human relations which have been subjected to poetic and rhetorical intensification, translation and decoration; truths are illusions of which we have forgotten that they are illusions, metaphors which have become worn by frequent use and have lost all sensuous vigour. Yet we still do not know where the drive to truth comes from, for so far we have only heard about the obligation to be truthful which society imposes in order to exist"from, "On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense"."
177
"Let philosophy resolutely aim to be as scientific as possible, but let her not forget her strong kinship with literature."
168
"Our salvation is in striving to achieve what we know we'll never achieve."
164
"Communism is a religion that is inspired, directed and motivated by the Devil himself who has declared war against Almighty God."
158
"Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy."
144
"As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods."
133
"How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask-half our great theological and metaphysical problems-are like that."
125
"Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."
121
"But an action which wants to serve man ought to be careful not to forget him on the way, if it chooses to fulfill itself blindly, it will lose its meaning or will take on an unforeseen meaning; for the goal is not fixed once & for all; it is defined all along the road which leads up to it."
117
"All men are poets at heart."
106
"It is only about things that do not interest one, that one can give a really unbiassed opinion; and this is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always valueless."
105
"To set their sufferings alongside the sufferings of another people was to compare them (which hell was worse?), demoting Sarajevo's martyrdom to a mere instance."
103
"Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" - and find that there is no death."
103
"What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms " in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins."
102
"In the end idealism annoyed Bouvard. 'I don't want any more of it: the famous cogito is a bore. The ideas of things are taken for the things themselves. What we barely understand is explained by means of words that we do not understand at all! Substance, extension, force, matter and soul, are all so many abstractions, figments of the imagination. As for God, it is impossible to know how he is, or even if he is! Once he was the cause of wind, thunder, revolutions. Now he is getting smaller. Besides, I don't see what use he is."
101
"Man is the cruelest animal," says Zarathustra. "When gazing at tragedies, bull-fights, crucifixations he hath hitherto felt happier than at any other time on Earth. And when he invented Hell...lo, Hell was his Heaven on Earth"; he could put up with suffering now, by contemplating the eternal punishment of his oppressors in the other world."
100
"We are all worms, But I do believe that I am a glow worm."
100
"God shows us the path, the Devil shows us the possibilities."
99
"The devil is a master at making us question God and His Word. Twisting Scripture . . . taking a verse out of context . . .deceiving us into thinking God is mean-spirited-these are some of Satan's favorite tricks."
99
"What a silly thing love is!' said the student as he walked away. 'It is not half as useful as logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is always telling one of things that are not going to happen, and making one believe things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and, as in this age to be practical is everything, I shall go back to philosophy and study metaphysics.' So he returned to his room and pulled out a great dusty book, and began to read."
97
"Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought."
96
"What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me--that is what I understand. And these two certainties--my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle--I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope which I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my condition?"
95
"You must, in studying Nature, always consider both each single thing and the whole: nothing is inside and nothing is outside, for what is within is without. Make haste, then, to grasp this holy mystery which is public knowledge.Rejoice in the true illusion, in the serious game: no living thing is a unity, it is always manifold."
94
"You cannot judge any man beyond your knowledge of him, and how small is your knowledge."
94
"It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist."
92
"No clergyman however brilliant, no evangelist no matter how eloquent or compelling, can bring about the revival we need. Only the Holy Spirit can do this."
92
"A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream."
91
"The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question. But I want to be clear: I'm not trying to be anyone's savior. I'm just trying to think about the future and not be sad."
91
"Fuck the drug war. Dropping acid was a profound turning point for me, a seminal experience. I make no apologies for it. More people should do acid. It should be sold over the counter."
91
"Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand."
90
"Satan has slaughtered, plundered, and bludgeoned his way through the centuries, manifesting himself in every false ideology, sect, and cult."
90
"Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal."
89
"Right is right even if no one is doing it, wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it."
89
"Fear is the chain that wraps around a free man's leg."
88
"Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth."
87
"If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and make it the object of our game; to turn it into a toy."
87
"Well at ease are the Sleepers for whom Existence is a shallow Dream."
87
"Prayers have no boundaries. They can leap miles and continents and be translated instantly into any language."
86
"In the morning, prayer is the key that opens to usthe treasures of God's mercies and blessings; in the evening, it is the key that shuts us up under His protection and safeguard."
86
"He seriously thought that there is less harm in killing a man than producing a child: in the first case you are relieving someone of life, not his whole life but a half or a quarter or a hundredth part of that existence that is going to finish, that would finish without you; but as for the second, he would say, are you not responsible to him for all the tears he will shed, from the cradle to the grave? Without you he would never have been born, and why is he born? For your amusement, not for his, that's for sure; to carry your name, the name of a fool, I'll be bound " you may as well write that name on some wall; why do you need a man to bear the burden of three or four letters?"
86
"The church is in turmoil today. The church is not to reflect the world but to be a portrait of Jesus Christ."
86
"Like a last signpost to the other path, Napoleon appeared, the most isolated and late-born man there has even been, and in him the problem of the noble ideal as such made flesh--one might well ponder what kind of problem it is; Napoleon this synthesis of the inhuman and the superhuman."
85
"The thing that attracted me about philosophy was that it went straight to essentials. I had never liked fiddling detail; I perceived the general significance of things rather than their singularities, and I preferred understanding to seeing; I had always wanted to know everything; philosophy would allow me to appease this desire, for it aimed at total reality;philosophy went right to the heart of truth and revealed to me, instead of an illusory whirlwind of facts or empirical laws, an order, a reason, a necessity in everything."
85
"What is suffering? I'm not sure what it is, but I know that suffering is the name we give to the origin of all the sighs, screams, and groans - small and large, crude and multifaceted - that concern us. The word defines our gaze even more than what we are looking at."
85
"Are these things really better than the things I already have? Or am I just trained to be dissatisfied with what I have now?"
85
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