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Quotes by Philosopher
"Some social ills are preserved by the common misbelief that things such as ignorance, greed, and stupidity do not have the stamina required to reach old age."
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"When you find that a theology has nothing more to offer than what the world already offers, then that theology as a theology is impractical, and therefore, useless."
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"If you wish to be out front, then act as if you were behind."
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"Love one another, but make not a bond of love:Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."
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"Be stern in the council-chamber, [Show no weakness, and insist on your plans being ratified by the sovereign.] so that you may control the situation."
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"Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read. If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost."
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"The irrational in the human has something about it altogether repulsive and terrible, as we see in the maniac, the miser, the drunkard or the ape."
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"Hardly any human being is capable of pursuing two professions or two arts rightly."
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"If this had not been the case with Abraham, then perhaps he might have loved God but notbelieved; for he who loves God without faith reflects upon himself, he who loves God believingly reflects upon God."
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"Conscience is thus explained only as the voice of God in the soul."
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"Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man."
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"Our thinking and our behaviour are always in anticipation of a response. It is therefore fear-based."
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"There is not a single ill-doer who could not be turned to some good."
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"There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health."
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"Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results."
18
"A little more and I would have fallen into the mirror trap. I avoided it, but only to fall into the window trap: with nothing to do, my arms dangling, I go over to the window."
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"I once began to ask around what constitutes a good poem. It felt petty, in a sense. A boy would need no help in deciding which girls he thinks are pretty."
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"He wins his battles by making no mistakes.Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated."
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"To measure a man's happiness only by what he gets, and not also by what he expects to get, is as futile as to try and express a fraction which shall have a numerator but no denominator."
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"All geniuses are peculiarly inclined to solitude, to which they are driven as much by their difference from others as the inner wealth with which they are quipped, since among humans, among diamonds, only the uncommonly great are suited as solitaires: the ordinary ones must be set in clusters to produce any effect."
18
"We try too much and trust too little. Count the times God's Book tells us to 'try.' Now count the times it tells us to 'trust."
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"Now to exert oneself and work for the sake of amusement seems silly and utterly childish. But to amuse oneself in order that one may exert oneself, as Anacharsis puts it, seems right; for amusement is a sort of relaxation, and we need relaxation because we cannot work continuously. Relaxation, then, is not an end; for it is taken for the sake of activity."
18
"The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour."
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"Like crying wolf, if you keep looking for sympathy as a justification for your actions, you will someday be left standing alone when you really need help."
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"To practice with an end in view is to have one eye on the practice and the other on the end, which is lack of concentration, lack of sincerity."
18
"Language disguises thought."
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"Good digestions, the gray monotony of provincial life, and the boredom-ah the soul-destroying boredom-of long days of mild content."
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"No fact in human nature is more characteristic than its willingness to live on a chance. The existence of the chance makes the difference between a life of which the keynote is resignation and a life of which the keynote is hope."
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"When you are laboring for others let it be with the same zeal as if it were for yourself."
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"I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist."
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"An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible."
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"Intolerance is a form of egotism, and to condemn egotism intolerantly is to share it."
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"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist."
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"What knows he of love who has not been obliged to despise just what he loved."
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"Every man needs his Siren To check his courage and strength When he hears her song In his travels through the unknown."
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"No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now."
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"The will is the strong blind man who carries on his shoulders the lame man who can see."
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"It is true that a great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them. But it is a great mistake to suppose that he will do this better for being ignorant of the traditions."
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"To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself."
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"When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That's if you want to teach them to think."
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