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Philosophy Quotes
"All interpretation or observation of reality is necessarily fiction. In this case, the problem is that man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other purpose than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species. It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for a human being. We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we're awake. As I said, pure biology."
46
"I'm evolving, is the thing; I'm a god becoming a constellation.''The constellations are mostly demigods,' I point out. 'And they didn't get to be constellations until after they died.'He laughs at that, and says, 'Death is a small sacrifice to become immortal."
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"Just the inexplicable wants to be understood within the nonsense of emptiness that belongs to this world of illusion."
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"What most counts is not to live but to live aright."
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"The polarity between the male and female principles exists also within each man and each woman. Just as physiologically man and woman each have hormones of the opposite sex, they are bisexual also in the psychological sense. They carry in themselves the principle of receiving and of penetrating, of matter and of spirit. Man-and woman-finds union within himself only in the union of his female and his male polarity. This polarity is the basis for all creativity."
46
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot."
46
"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations. These two spring from the same source but differ in name; this appears as darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gate to all mystery."
46
"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim."
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"The present is the now the here through which all future plunges to the past."
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"Just think! This whole world of ours is only a speck of mildew sprung up on a tiny planet, yet we think we can have something great - thoughts,, actions! They are all but grains of sand."
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"He is not apprehended by reason, but by life."
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"How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control."
46
"People pontificate, "Suicide is selfishness." Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call in a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reason: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one's audience with one's mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what's selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching."
46
"With regard to sleep and waking, we must consider what they are: whether they are peculiar to soul or to body, or common to both; and if common, to what part of soul or body the appertain: further, from what cause it arises that they are atributes of animals, and whether all animals share in them both, or some partake of the one only, others of the other only, or some partake of neither and some of both."
46
"I refuse to let the standards of evil people chip away at my capacity for integrity."
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"Reality is just a matter of perception."
46
"I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom."
46
"The lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one ... the more active and swift the latter is the further he will go astray."
46
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
46
"Any intelligent person knows that life is a beautiful thing and that the purpose of life is to be happy," said my father as he watched the three beauties. "But it seems only idiots are ever happy. How can we explain this?"
46
"The tragedy of unfulfilling life is that you're already dead but no one pronounced you dead..."
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"Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly."
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"Walking in ignorance is a choice for those who find reality too hard to face."
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"Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don't really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way. Ends are not bad and many ends aren't really an ending; some things are never-ending."
46
"The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark."
46
"Indeed the mind of IlAovatar concerning you is not known to the Valar, and he has not revealed all things that are to come. But this we hold to be true, that your home is not here, neither in the land of Aman nor anywhere within the Circles of the World. And the Doom of Men, that they should depart, was at first a gift of IlAovatar. It became a grief to them only because coming under the shadow of Morgoth it seemed to them that they were surrounded by a great darkness, of which they grew afraid; and some grew wilful and proud and would not yield, until life was reft from them."
46
"It was like finding out the world was made of gossamer and could be so easily ripped apart. To be solely at the mercy of fate."
46
"Only what you willingly accept can continue to be part of your life."
46
"There is no conflict, and no call for sacrifice, and no man is a threat to the aims of another-if men understand that reality is an absolute not to be faked, that lies do not work, that the unearned cannot be had, that the undeserved cannot be given, that the destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't."
46
"For the word "We" must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within man's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men, and of an unspeakable lie.The word "We" is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages."
46
"Where the questions of religion are concerned people are guilty of every possible kind of insincerity and intellectual misdemeanor."
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"If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom."
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"If your needs are little, you are rich enough."
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"We need to fortify ourselves with the Word of God."
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"If only we studied the stars as much as we study our own reflections."
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"The stone has no uncertainties, no urge to communicate, and is eternally the same for thousands of years, while I am only a passing phenomenon which bursts into all kinds of emotions, like a flame that flares up quickly and then goes out."
46
"I have never since entirely freed myself of the impression that this life is a segment of existence which is enacted in a three-dimensional boxlike universe especially set up for it."
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"It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity."
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"The ability to rejoice in any situation is a sign of spiritual maturity."
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"No personality in history stands above Jesus Christ . . .He alone is able to meet every need of the human race."
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"Do you know that even when you look at a tree and say, `That is an oak tree', or `that is a banyan tree', the naming of the tree, which is botanical knowledge, has so conditioned your mind that the word comes between you and actually seeing the tree? To come in contact with the tree you have to put your hand on it and the word will not help you to touch it."
45
"All definitions are the interpretations of contrasts. What is, helps define what it is not!"
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"The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift."
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"Are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?"
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"The value of things is not the time they last, but the intensity with which they occur. That is why there are unforgettable moments and unique people!"
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"As for me all I know is that I know nothing."
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"The heart has a deeper intelligence than the mind ever will."
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"Our entire life worth's less than one moment of the absolute's truth vanity."
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"In a like manner, as soon as we know the meaning of being and the meaning of nonbeing, we know that a thing cannot be and not be at one and the same time, and under the same formal consideration."
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"The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves."
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