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Quotes by Philosopher
"They say: 'If a man knew himself,he would know all mankind.'I say: 'If a man loved mankind,he would know something of himself."
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"When you were a wandering desire in the mist, I too was there, a wandering desire. Then we sought one another, and out of our eagerness dreams were born. And dreams were time limitless, and dreams were space without measure."
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"If we were to suppose that mankind never can or will be in a better condition, it seems impossible to justify by any kind of theodicy the mere fact that such a race of corrupt beings could have been created on earth at all."
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"He'd no longer be a grade-motivated person. He'd be a knowledge-motivated person. He would need no external pushing to learn. His push would come from inside. He'd be a free man. He wouldn't need a lot of discipline to shape him up. In fact, if the instructors assigned him were slacking on the job he would be likely to shape them up by asking rude questions. He'd be there to learn something, would be paying to learn something and they'd better come up with it.Motivation of this sort, once it catches hold, is a ferocious force..."
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"Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding."
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"Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature."
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"Why pay money for the horror movies? Just go to a street without trees!"
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"Good friends are divine instruments."
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"Always remember that you were once alone, and the crowd you see in your life today are just as unecessary as when you were alone."
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"You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one."
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"The older you get, the more you understand how your conscience works. The biggest and only critic lives in your perception of people's perception of you rather than people's perception of you."
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"The stone that was rolled before Christ's tomb might appropriately be called the philosopher's stone because its removal gave not only the pharisees but, now for 1800 years, the philosophers so much to think about."
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"Wherever there is abuse there is also corruption. Politics, philosophy, theology, science, industry, any field with the potential to affect the well-being of others can be destroyed by abuse and saved by good will."
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"Those that lack friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts."
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"If you fight with all your might, there is a chance of life; where as death is certain if you cling to your corner."
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"The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it."
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"Philosophy cannot and should not give us an account of faith, but should understand itself and know just what it has indeed to offer, without taking anything away, least of all cheating people out of something by making them think it is nothing."
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"Four things belong to a judge: to hear courteously to answer wisely to consider soberly and to decide impartially."
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"Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind.Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward."
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"We traveled long and forgot why poetry was invented."
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"A wise bird does not lend even the smallest of its feathers to a hunter."
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"Humility and Dignity had a daughter, called Arrogance, who was ashamed of her name and used to hide behind Pride. But Pride was in love with Truth, therefore arrogance married Illusion and forever despised Truth. Pride and Truth had a daughter, called Happiness, while Arrogance and Illusion had a son, called Despair. When both meet, one of them cries."
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"Eloquence.- We need both what is pleasing and what is real, but that which pleases must itself be drawn from the true."
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"It is easier for one to take risks and to chase his dreams with a mindset that he has nothing to lose. In this lies the immense passion, the great advantage of avoiding a materialistic, pleasure-filled way of life."
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"Of all the paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path .. A thing which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do .. To find this path, and walk in it, is the one thing needful for him."
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"Could there ever be a wise man without the wisdom or life or without the death of illusion?"
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"Some women are good-looking - until they change their hairstyle."
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"Nothing is inanimate, what is the rest is our interpretation."
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"If an ant carries an object a hundred times its weight, you can carry burdens many times your size."
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"For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself, whether it be by means of this or that poetry or art; only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is constantly ready for revenge, and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight."
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"In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels."
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"He who is in harmony with the Taois like a newborn child.Its bones are soft, its muscles are weak,but its grip is powerful.It doesn't know about the unionof male and female,yet its penis can stand erect,so intense is its vital power.It can scream its head off all day,yet it never becomes hoarse,so complete is its harmony.The Master's power is like this.He lets all things come and goeffortlessly, without desire.He never expects results;thus he is never disappointed.He is never disappointed;thus his spirit never grows old."
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"I have long held the opinion that the amount of noise that anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity and therefore be regarded as a pretty fair measure of it."
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"The soul's steps are greater than the heart's leaps."
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"Genius in truth means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way."
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"Nature generally in the distribution of her capacities has adapted the means to the endso nature's true destination must be to produce a will, not merely good as a means to something else, but good in itself, for which reason wasimparted to us as a practicalabsolutely necessaryfaculty."
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"What, then, is the government? An intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, a body charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, both civil and political."
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"The primitive tribes permitted far less individual freedom than does modern society. Ancient wars were committed with far less moral justification than modern ones. A technology that produces debris can find, and is finding, ways of disposing of it without ecological upset. And the schoolbook pictures of primitive man sometimes omit some of the detractions of his primitive life - the pain, the disease, famine, the hard labor needed just to stay alive. From that agony of bare existence to modern life can be soberly described only as upward progress, and the sole agent for this progress is quite clearly reason itself."
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"The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly."
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"I have a thing for things that last."
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"Consciousness is a born hermit."
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"To rule a country of a thousand chariots, there must be reverent attention to business, and sincerity; economy in expenditure, and love for men; and the employment of the people at the proper seasons."
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"The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition."
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"Revere the unity of all-that-iscarry out your daily activities with compassion;if you do not limit your compassion,you yourself will not be limited."
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"By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities."
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"Boys should abstain from all use of wine until their eighteenth year for it is wrong to add fire to fire."
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"F you wish to put off all worry, assume that what you fear may happen is certainly going to happen."
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