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Quotes by Philosopher
"He who is a firstling is ever sacrificed."
19
"Ideas are infinite, original, and lively divine thoughts."
19
"Nothingness haunts Being."
19
"To be able to use leisure intelligently will be the last product of an intelligent civilization."
19
"Words are the voice of the heart."
19
"There is no reality except in action. Man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life."
19
"Man is only a reed the weakest thing in nature but he is a thinking reed."
19
"How much more reasonable is it to say with the sage Plato, that the perfect happiness of a state consists in the subjects obeying their prince, the prince obeying the laws, and the laws being equitable and always directed to the good of the public?"
19
"As soon as you have made a thought, laugh at it."
19
"There is something perfect to be found in the imperfect: the law keeps balance through the juxtaposition of beauty, which gains perfection through nurtured imperfection."
19
"It can be a good thing if deeper theology, or philosophy, only makes one more uncertain. It may lead to a healthy doubt; he may throw his hands up saying, 'God, I just don't know anymore. If you're out there, I'm giving it all to you.' From there, after the surrender, he is allowing God himself, rather than theories, books, and documents, to take over and lead him into all truth."
19
"Conflict is the essence of the self."
19
"Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays."
19
"Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn't have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn't have to be a walk during which you'll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don't find meaning but 'steal' some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn't make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be."
19
"The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble."
19
"Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger."
19
"Without man and his potential for moral progress, the whole of reality would be a mere wilderness, a thing in vain, and have no final purpose."
19
"If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!"
19
"A clever general, therefore, avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish and inclined to return."
19
"Know, therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return..... Forget not that I shall come back to you....A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and anohter woman shall bear me."
19
"The universe is God's son."
19
"It is the Godfather, not God the Father, who makes you an offer you can't refuse."
19
"The source of everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral being namely, that his errors are corrigible."
19
"The problem is that no ethical system has ever achieved consensus. Ethical systems are completely unlike mathematics or science. This is a source of concern."
19
"You cannot really shame a man who sincerely does not care what others think of him."
19
"Perfection seems sterile; it is final, no mystery in it; it's a product of an assembly line."
19
"Be self-indulgent, and those who are also self-indulgent will like you. Tear your neighbor to pieces, and the other neighbors will laugh. But if you beat your soul, all souls will cry out."
19
"Smile, even when others do not. Care, even when others will not. Love, even when others could not. Give, even when others cannot."
19
"Choose food, clothing, and shelter that accords with nature.Rely on your own body for transportation. Allow your work and your recreation to be one and the same. Do exercise that develops your whole being and not just your body. Listen to music that bridges the three spheres of your being. Choose leaders for their virtue rather than their wealth or power. Serve others and cultivate yourself simultaneously. Understand that true growth comes from meeting and solving problems of life in a way that is harmonizing to yourself and to others. If you can follow these simple old ways, you will be continually renewed."
19
"Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents."
19
"Certain details, somewhat curtailed, live in my memory. But I don't see anything anymore: I can search the past in vain, I can only find these scraps of images and I am not sure what they represent, whether they are memories or just fiction."
19
"The only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes."
19
"Narrative is linear, but action has breadth and depth as well as height and is solid."
19
"Indifference is more truly the opposite of love than hate is, for we can both love and hate the same person at the same time, but we cannot both love and be indifferent to the same person at the same time."
19
"An excellent photograph is the one which has excellently captured an excellent moment!"
19
"I have crossed the seas, I have left cities behind me,and I have followed the source of rivers towards theirsource or plunged into forests, always making for othercities. I have had women, I have fought with men ; andI could never turn back any more than a record can spinin reverse. And all that was leading me where ?To this very moment..."
19
"Employee' is a label given to a creature that could not hold on to its dream."
19
"Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and nights."
19
"There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric....But he, who, not being inspired and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of art--he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman."
19
"By the way, if you get mad at your Mac laptop and wonder who designed this demonic device, notice the manufacturer's icon on top: an apple with a bite out of it."
19
"All terrible things are more terrible if they give us no chance of retrieving a blunder-either no chance at all, or only one that depends on our enemies and not ourselves. Those things are also worse which we cannot, or cannot easily, help. Speaking generally, anything causes us to feel fear that when it happens to, or threatens, others causes us to feel pity."
19
"Never forget that you are not in the world; the world is in you. When anything happens to you, take the experience inward. Creation is set up to bring you constant hints and clues about your role as co-creator. Your soul is metabolizing experience as surely as your body is metabolizing food."
19
"Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men."
19
"The bird and the elephant drink from the same river."
19
"Most people believe that the Christian commandments are intentionally a little too severe - like setting a clock half an hour ahead to make sure of not being late in the morning."
19
"The whole universe is but a huge Symbol of god"."
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