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Quotes by Philosopher
"A slap from God is better than a handshake from the devil."
15
"February 13, 1936I ask of people more than they can give me. It is useless to maintain the contrary. But what a mistake and what despair. And myself perhaps...Seek contacts. All contacts. If I want to write about men, should I stop talking about the countryside? If the sky or light attract me, shall I forget the eyes or voices of those I love? Each time I am given the elements of a friendship, the fragments of an emotion, never the emotion or the friendship itself."
15
"Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life."
15
"Let's not grow with our roots in the ground."
15
"Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence."
15
"The difference between Socrates and Jesus? The great conscious and the immeasurably great unconscious."
15
"On some dimension or other, every event in life can be causing only one of two things: either it is good for you, or it is bringing up what you need to look at in order to create good for you. Evolution is win-win life is self-correcting."
15
"He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader."
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"Some men are born posthumously."
15
"Anger has great strength, but no brains. Greed has a great appetite, but no heart. Pride has a great spirit, but no soul."
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"If you want to be happy, love. If you want to be happier, love some more."
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"Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly."
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"We don't know anything about silent sages, buried knowledge, the eye of the mute poet, serene seers, yet how many talkative destroyers, prophets and ideologues, teachers and beautifiers there are on the other side."
15
"Dismantle your friend to see how he behaves. If he smiles with a beautiful grin, then take him back, he's worthy to be called a friend."
15
"An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it."
15
"No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge."
15
"Our enemies are quite good for relentlessly keeping us sharp and on our toes. This especially goes for sincere philosophers. They use their enemies to challenge their arguments so that they can know the weak points in their own reasoning and how to argue for and strengthen their position. There are just none like one's enemies to always look for his mistakes and do it harder than anyone else."
15
"What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, money ... but it is absurd to take money too seriously, to confuse it with real wealth ... In somewhat the same way, thoughts, ideas and words are "coins" for real things."
15
"At the end of every dark storm is a bright rainbow."
15
"Life curses some poor people with the love of luxury, while it blesses some with the very same thing."
15
"When you aren't satisfied with what has already been done, make something better. That is the greatest responsibility and the true freedom of creativity. The freedom is in that it doesn't need to complain."
15
"A lion is not afraid of walking alone, even if the whole jungle is pursuing it."
15
"War grows out of ordinary human nature."
15
"At fifteen I set my heart upon learning. At thirty, I had planted my feet firm upon the ground. At forty, I no longer suffered from perplexities. At fifty, I knew what were the biddings of Heaven. At sixty, I heard them with docile ear. At seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart; for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right."
15
"I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy."
15
"Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men."
15
"Today's seeds are tomorrow's harvests."
15
"Excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgments."
15
"Don't be afraid to fall, for every fall teaches you how to rise."
15
"People only stone a tree that is full of ripe fruit."
15
"If you want to govern the people,You must place yourself below them.If you want to lead people,You must learn how to follow them."
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"Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain tricks of custom: but of all these perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that the miraculous by simple repetition ceases to be miraculous."
15
"The smartest fish are still in the sea."
15
"You were not born to impress the world, but to impress the universe."
15
"If your mind is loaded with many burdens, you will not feel yourself empty even in an empty place!"
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"But it is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthword, downword, into the dark, the deep - into evil."
15
"Thus it amounts to the same thing whether one gets drunk alone or is a leader of nations."
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"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly."
15
"Ordinary people merely think how they shall 'spend' their time, a man of talent tries to 'use' it."
15
"If the sky was the limit, stars would not light our way to the edge of the universe."
15
"What made me run away was doubtless not so much the fear of settling down, but of settling down permanently in something ugly."
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"Every society requires mutual accommodation and mutually agreeable temper; hence the larger it is, the duller."
15
"In God's eyes, a man who teaches one truth and nothing else is more righteous than a man who teaches a million truths and one lie."
15
"When the heart says "yes" - it is difficult for the mind to say "no."
15
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