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Quotes by Philosopher
"If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?"
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"A star is a rock that could no longer hide its light from the world."
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"When there's music in your soul, there's soul in your music."
15
"The greatest among you are those with the greatest love. The richest among you are those with the most joy."
15
"One who conquers the sea today is ready to conquer the ocean tomorrow."
15
"Without the errors which are active in every psychical pleasure and displeasrue a humanity would never have come into existence--whose fundamental feeling is and remains that man is the free being in a world of unfreedom, the external miracle worker whether he does good or ill, the astonishing exception, the superbeast and almost-god, the meaning of creation which cannot be thought away, the solution of the cosmic riddle, the mighty ruler over nature and the despiser of it, the creature which calls its history world history!--Vanitas vanitatum homo."
15
"My heart goes out to some of those rather hostile yet highly intelligent individuals who may see problems really because they have solutions. That hostility is learned in defense; not offense. An often stubborn and prideful world, in its self-destructive, temporary bliss of ignorance, may be violently resistant to the watchful mind."
15
"A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short."
15
"Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character."
15
"To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness."
15
"A man must live in the world and make the best of it such as it is."
15
"I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple."
15
"The Victorian Age, for all its humbug, was a period of rapid progress, because men were dominated by hope rather than fear. If we are again to have progress, we must again be dominated by hope."
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"What? You seek something? You wish to multiply yourself tenfold, a hundredfold? You seek followers? Seek zeros!"
15
"A pencil and rubber are of more use to thought than a battalion of assistants. To happiness the same applies as to truth: one does not have it, but is in it."
15
"Companionship is a foreign concept to some people. They fear it as much as the majority of people fear loneliness."
15
"A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably."
15
"So far war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community and until an equivalent discipline is organized I believe that war must have its way."
15
"Perhaps he even needs to have been a critic and a sceptic and a dogmatist and an historian, and in addition a poet and collector and traveller and puzzle-solver and moralist and seer and 'free spirit' and nearly all things, so that he can traverse the range of human values and value-feelings and be able to look with many kinds of eyes and consciences from the heights into every distance, from the depths into every height, from the corners into every wide expanse."
15
"People live in different worlds. There's a rich world, there's a poor world, and there's an extremely poor. The one you dwell is determined by the outcome of your sacrifice."
15
"Even if there are instances in which it can be mistook by onlookers, never fool yourself into using misunderstood genius as an excuse to be a fool."
15
"Irony is a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos."
15
"Action has meaning only in relationship, and without understanding relationship, action on any level will only breed conflict. The understanding of relationship is infinitely more important than the search for any plan of action."
15
"Never have I enjoyed youth so thoroughly as I have in my old age. In writing Dialogues in Limbo The Last Puritan and now all these descriptions of the friends of my youth and the young friends of my middle age I have drunk the pleasure of life more pure more joyful than it ever was when mingled with all the hidden anxieties and little annoyances of actual living. Nothing is inherently and invincibly young except spirit. And spirit can enter a human being perhaps better in the quiet of old age and dwell there more undisturbed than in the turmoil of adventure."
15
"If a soldier or labourer complains of the hardship of his lot set him to do nothing."
15
"The beliefs which we have the most warrant for have no safeguard, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded."
15
"To win true freeedom you must be a slave to philosophy."
15
"Sometimes you feel as though you've slandered yourself, but the joke's on them."
15
"The world is a fairy tale, we are its guardians."
15
"It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night."
15
"The word experience is like a shrapnel shell, and bursts into a thousand meanings."
15
"Great wildernesses lead you to great Promised Lands."
15
"The skill of the politician consists in guessing what people can be brought to think advantageous to themselves; the skill of the experts consists in calculating what really is advantageous, provided people can be brought to think so. (The proviso is essential, because measures which arouse serious resentment are seldom advantageous, whatever merits they may have otherwise.) The power of the politician, in a democracy, depends upon his adopting the opinions which seem right to the average man. It is useless to urge that politicians ought to be high-minded enough to advocate what enlightened opinion considers good, because if they do they are swept aside for others."
15
"That which now calls itself democracy differs from older forms of government solely in that it drives with new horses: the streets are still the same old streets, and the wheels are likewise the same old wheels."
15
"We are way less likely to love someone just because they love us than we are to hate someone just because they hate us."
15
"Philosophical knowledge is knowledge which reason gains from concepts mathematical knowledge is knowledge which reason gains from the construction of concepts."
15
"Love is the unfathomable ground that is hidden in darkness, but the resolution is the triumphant victor who, like Orpheus, fetches the infatuation of falling in love to the light of day, for the resolution is the true form of love, the true explanation and transfiguration."
15
"You are better than your past, greater than your present, and brighter than your future."
15
"Everything that you want in life, is possible. But the reflection in the mirror will always show who is reflecting. One can't change the reflection without changing himself."
15
"Wizards? Do you mean they do things a different way?""No, just the way we do,"Merlin replied.With a flick of his finger he lit the soggy heap of kindling that Arthur had gathered (...) A blaze leapt up on the instant. Merlin then opened his hands and produced some food out of thin air."
15
"Every category has its snobs: music, books, movies. There are so many things a man is only pressured into liking or disliking."
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"It's neither judgment nor judgment according to the status quo that we have a problem with, but rather judgment according to God's Word that we have a problem with. We sharply dress ourselves, go out into the world, shape ourselves, our personalities according to the world's standards and preferences, allow ourselves to be made dull by the world and its desires in order to appear successful and happy and attractive in the eyes of the world. We love the world's judgment but we hate God's judgment. Absurdly enough, the one that really matters, the one out of the purest of loves rather than a mere contract in hopes of mutual gain, is the one which we so adamantly try to shut ourselves off from."
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"What can we do without pain in front of happiness?"
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"He who defends with love will be secure; Heaven will save him, and protect him with love."
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"All men are born firstly with the instinct to protect themselves. But few grow to really love themselves, and even fewer learn to love their neighbor as themselves."
15
"Woes and wonders of Power, that tonic hell, synthesis of poison and panacea."
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