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Quotes by Philosopher

"To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize."

"Every wise, just, and mild government, by rendering the condition of its subjects easy and secure, will always abound most in people, as well as in commodities and riches."

"Thus the public use of reason and freedom is nothing but a dessert, a sumptuous dessert."


"Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them."

"The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery."

"Your mind shines brightest when you enlighten others; your heart, when you encourage others; your soul, when you elevate others; and your life, when you empower others."


"Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of -- for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear."

"Hope, insofar as it is hope of resurrection, is the living contradiction of what it proceeds from and what is placed under the sign of the Cross and death."

"All the classical genres are now ridiculous in their rigorous purity."

"Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish."

"I have heard Silvius, an excellent physician of Paris, say that lest the digestive faculties of the stomach should grow idle, it were not amiss once a month to rouse them by this excess, and to spur them lest they should grow dull and rusty; and one author tells us that the Persians used to consult about their mostimportant affairs after being well warmed with wine."

"That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject."

"You have to be a light to yourself in a world that is utterly becoming dark."

"If we all told what we know of one another there would not be four friends in the world."

"The past and the future are distractions. Live only in the present moment."

"You only have to doze a moment, and all is lost. For ruin and salvation both have their source inside you."

"Freedomis a property of all rational beings."

"A philosopher once said, 'Half of good philosophy is good grammar.'"

"The fundamental sense of freedom is freedom from chains, from imprisonment, from enslavement by others. The rest is extension of this sense, or else metaphor."

"Perhaps time's definition of coal is the diamond."

"If God is One, and if there can be no other God, there can be no idea of God."

"It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well nor the judgment to hold their tongues."

"The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men."

"Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power."

"It should now be clear why the method of Philosophy is so different from that of the natural sciences. Experiments are not made, because they would be utterly useless."


"India saw from the beginning, and, even in her ages of reason and her age of increasing ignorance, she never lost hold of the insight, that life cannot be rightly seen in the sole light, cannot be perfectly lived in the sole power of its externalities."

"I quote others only in order the better to express myself."

"If you want to see mankind fully, look at a family. Within the family minds become organically one, and for this reason the family is total poetry."


"Life has become the ideology of its own absence."

"Anyone can escape into sleep, we are all geniuses when we dream, the butcher's the poet's equal there."

"A use-value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because abstract human labour is objectified or materialized in it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured? By means of the quantity of the "value-forming substance", the labour, contained in the article. This quantity is measured by its duration, and the labour-time is itself measured on the particular scale of hours, days etc."


"Estrangement shows itself precisely in the elimination of distance between people."

"Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist."

"To be of good quality, you have to excuse yourself from the presence of shallow and callow minded individuals."

"The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself."

"Nay, the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly, "The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out;" as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to the end to have them found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God's playfellows in that game."


"What am I? The modest narrator who accompanies your triumphs; the dancer who supports you when you rise in your lovely grace; the branch upon which you rest a moment when you are tired of flying; the bass that interposes itself below the soprano's fervour to let it climb even higher-what am I? I am the earthly gravity that keeps you on the ground. What am I, then? Body, mass, earth, dust and ashes.-You, my Cordelia, you are soul and spirit."


"There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general:(1) Recklessness, which leads to destruction;(2) cowardice, which leads to capture;(3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults;(4) a delicacy of honor which is sensitive to shame;(5) over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble."

"Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher."


"Come, sleep and death; you promise nothing, you hold everything."

"Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end."

"Every Profound thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood."

"Science is the systematic classification of experience."

"Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them."
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