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Philosophy Quotes
"Who has believed in the world and died with its name on his lips?"
18
"What once were vices are now manners."
18
"For to fear death, men, is in fact nothing other than to seem to be wise, but not to be so. For it is to seem to know what one does not know: no one knows whether death does not even happen to be the greatest of all goods for the human being; but people fear it as though they knew well that it is the greatest of evils."
18
"Some of the strongest warnings about judgment in the Bible come from the lips of Jesus."
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"We are called to obey Christ. He is the Master of our lives and has washed us in His blood, which cleanses our souls, our minds, and our mouths. The world is watching. What do they see and hear?"
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"I would not say that I was, these days, a 'student' of philosophy, although in my youth I was quite deeply involved with certain aspects of the British pragmatists."
18
"What sort of philosophy one chooses depends on what sort of person one is."
17
"If you study the writings of the mystics, you will always find things in them that appear to be paradoxes, as in Zen, particularly."
17
"All the most prominent Darwinists proclaim naturalistic philosophy when they think it safe to do so."
17
"I once tried thinking for an entire day, but I found it less valuable than one moment of study."
17
"Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there."
17
"Life itself is simple...it's just not easy."
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"The end of a melody is not its goal: but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable."
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"From my own limited experience, I have found that the greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. This helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the ultimate source of success in life."
17
"[The devil] always sends errors into the world in pairs--pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one."
17
"It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe."
17
"The sorry religious novel comes about when the writer supposes that because of his belief, he is somehow dispensed from the obligation to penetrate concrete reality. He will think that the eyes of the Church or of the Bible or of his particular theology have already done the seeing for him, and that his business is to rearrange this essential vision into satisfying patterns, getting himself as little dirty in the process as possible."
17
"The present basic philosophy is nuclear deterrence."
17
"When...did it become irrational to dislike religion, any religion, even to dislike it vehemently? When did reason get redescribed as unreason? When were the fairy stories of the superstitious placed above criticism, beyond satire? A religion was not a race. It was an idea, and ideas stood (or fell) because they were strong enough (or too weak) to withstand criticism, not because they were shielded from it. Strong ideas welcomed dissent."
17
"We learn and experience ourselves only through suffering, everything else is humbug."
17
"Men have called me mad; but the question is not settled whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence -- whether much that is glorious -- whether all that is profound -- does not spring from disease of thought -- from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who only dream by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the 'light ineffable'."
17
"Indolence is a delightful but distressing state. We must be doing something to be happy."
17
"Often ill comes from the good, as good from ill."
17
"It is as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of what we may call 'something there,' more deep and more general than any of the special and particular 'senses' by which the current psychology supposes existent realities to be originally revealed. If this were so, we might suppose the senses to waken our attitudes and conduct as they so habitually do, by first exciting this sense of reality; but anything else, any idea, for example, that might similarly excite it, would have that same prerogative of appearing real which objects of sense normally possess."
17
"To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils."
17
"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."
17
"Language has created a barrier that prevents us from seeing existence as it truly is."
17
"I have no philosophy, my favourite thing is sitting in the studio."
17
"If you're a true student of the truth, you may easily get frustrated when people try to make points based on mysticism and cultural beliefs."
17
"Ego is the complete identification with form. Physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms."
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"Earthly goods deceive the human heart into believing that they give it security and freedom from worry. But in truth, they are what cause anxiety."
17
"Circumstance points to deeper meaning."
17
"All I want is' - and he uttered the final words through clenched teeth and with a sort of shame - 'to retain my freedom.'I should myself have thought,' said Jacques, 'that freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one's responsibilities. But that, no doubt, is not your view."
17
"The basic experience of everyone is the experience of human limitation."
17
"Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment."
17
"No one can insult me, because I do not want respect.No one can defeat me, because I have given up the idea of winning.How can you defeat me? You can only defeat someone who wants to win."
17
"Philosophy is one reason which could lead to death."
17
"Relativism poses as humble by saying: "We are not smart enough to know what the truth is-or if there is any universal truth. It sounds humble. But look carefully at what is happening. It's like a servant saying: I am not smart enough to know which person here is my master-or if I even have a master. The result is that I don't have a master and I can be my own master. That is in reality what happens to relativists: In claiming to be too lowly to know the truth, they exalt themselves as supreme arbiter of what they can think and do. This is not humility. This is the essence of pride."
17
"This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, this is just perhaps the end of the beginning."
17
"Our ignorance can be divided into problems and mysteries. When we face a problem, we may not know its solution, but we have insight, increasing knowledge, and an inkling of what we are looking for. When we face a mystery, however, we can only stare in wonder and bewilderment, not knowing what an explanation would even look like."
17
"Ignorance was bliss."
17
"When you've understood this scripture, throw it away. If you can't understand this scripture, throw it away. I insist on your freedom."
17
"Philosophy is nothing but discretion."
17
"Liberation from the tyranny of the body contributes to greatness, but just as much to greatness in sin as to greatness in virtue."
17
"A Paradox, the doughnut hole. Empty space, once, but now they've learned to market even that. A minus quantity; nothing, rendered edible. I wondered if they might be used-metaphorically, of course-to demonstrate the existence of God. Does naming a sphere of nothingness transmute it into being?"
17
"Words and a book and a belief that the world is words..."
17
"Never to suffer would never to have been blessed."
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