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Quotes by Philosopher
"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
186
"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."
175
"Under peaceful conditions, the warlike man attacks himself."
161
"The craving for equality can express itself either as a desire to pull everyone down to our own level (by belittling them, excluding them, tripping them up) or as a desire to raise ourselves up along with everyone else (by acknowledging them, helping them, and rejoicing in their success)."
155
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."
148
"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."
145
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
143
"There is no original or primary gender a drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original."
143
"Valid questions are better than invalid assumptions."
142
"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"."
138
"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."
137
"Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical."
135
"The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night."
135
"Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future."
134
"Too often, people think that solving the world's problems is based on conquering the earth, rather than touching the earth, touching ground."
132
"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."
129
"Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity."
127
"A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies."
125
"The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation."
121
"In heaven, all the interesting people are missing."
120
"Narrative identity takes part in the story's movement, in the dialectic between order and disorder."
120
"It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get."
116
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society."
116
"My world has just become perfect, midnight is also noonday, pain is also joy, a curse is also a blessing, the night is also a sun " be gone, or you will learn: a wise man is also a fool."
115
"It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge."
115
"Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil."
112
"If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us."
112
"Freedom is the ultimate value in life. Nothing is higher than that."
111
"Indeed, this epistemological theory of the relation between theory and experiment differs sharply from the epistemological theory of naive falsificationism."
110
"Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind."
109
"The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny."
108
"The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings."
108
"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
106
"Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors."
105
"A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity."
105
"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."
105
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