Philosophy Quotes

We need to walk to know sacred places, those around us and those within. We need to walk to remember the songs.

~ Joseph Bruchac

As long as your ideas of what's possible are limited by what's actual, no other idea has a chance.

~ Susan Neiman

The world is a good judge of things, for it is in natural ignorance, which is man's true state. The sciences have two extremes which meet. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great intellects, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same ignorance from which they set out; but this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself. Those between the two, who have departed from natural ignorance and not been able to reach the other, have some smattering of this vain knowledge and pretend to be wise. These trouble the world and are bad judges of everything. The people and the wise constitute the world; these despise it, and are despised. They judge badly of everything, and the world judges rightly of them.

~ Blaise Pascal

People do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre.

~ Heraclitus

The art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and that whatever else is good, is not so as an end, but as a mean, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by proof.

~ John Stuart Mill

Think of me as an impetuous Hegel, drunk with power, and also, regular drunk.

~ Eugene Mirman

He did not wish to be divine. If there had never been a God, the emperor thought, it might have been easier to work out what goodness was. This business of worship, of the abnegation of self in the face of the Almighty, was a distraction, a false trail. Wherever goodness lay, it did not lie in ritual, unthinking obeisance before a deity but rather, perhaps, in the slow, clumsy, error-strewn working out of an individual or collective path.

~ Salman Rushdie

There is much in this vision that will remind you of your mystics; yet between them and us there is far more difference than similarity, in respect both of the matter and the manner of our thought. For while they are confident that the cosmos is perfect, we are sure only that it is very beautiful. While they pass to their conclusion without the aid of intellect, we have used that staff every step of the way. Thus, even when in respect of conclusions we agree with your mystics rather than your plodding intellectuals, in respect of method we applaud most your intellectuals; for they scorned to deceive themselves with comfortable fantasies.

~ Olaf Stapledon

...much theological discussion is wasted, not because the words used have no possible meaning, but because the people who use them don't mean anything by them.

~ Rosemary Haughton

A false-statement requires deceit and distortion for someone to buy it, but a truthful-statement sells itself.

~ William Bailey

People will not remember what you did for living,they will remember how you touched them with kindness and loving.

~ Debasish Mridha

BLACK AND WHITEI was born intoA religion of Light,But with so many otherReligions andPhilosophies,How do I know whichONEIs right?Is it notMy birthrightTo seek out the light?To find TruthAfter surveying all the proof,Am I supposedTo loveOr fight?And why do all those whoTry to guide me,Always start by dividingAnd multiplying me – From what they considerWrong or right?I thought,There were no wallsFor whoever beams truth and light.And how can one speak on Light's behalf,lf all they doIs act black,But talk WHITE?

~ Suzy Kassem

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. Therefore atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no further: and we see the times inclined to atheism (as the time of Augustus Cæsar) were civil times. But superstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new primum mobile, that ravisheth all the spheres of government. The master of superstition is the people; and in all superstition wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.

~ Francis Bacon

…is postmodernity the pastime of an old man who scrounges in the garbage-heap of finality looking for leftovers, who brandishes unconsciousnesses, lapses, limits, confines, goulags, parataxes, non-senses, or paradoxes, and who turns this into the glory of his novelty, into his promise of change?

~ Jean-François Lyotard

It is related that Sakyamuni [the historical Buddha] once dismissed as of small consequence a feat of levitation on the part of a disciple, and cried out in pity for a yogin by the river who had spent twenty years of his human existence learning to walk on water, when the ferryman might have taken him across for a small coin.

~ Peter Matthiessen

There is nothing more natural than to consider everything as starting from oneself, chosen as the center of the world; one finds oneself thus capable of condemning the world without even wanting to hear its deceitful chatter.

~ Guy Debord

There is a truth in Schopenhauer’s view that philosophy is an organism, and that a book on philosophy, with a beginning and end, is a sort of contradiction. ... In philosophy matters are not simple enough for us to say ‘Let’s get a rough idea’, for we do not know the country except by knowing the connections between the roads.

~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

Share your love, share you happiness, care for others; your wealth will be endless.

~ Debasish Mridha

The secret of happiness is love and secret of love is nonjudgmental care.

~ Debasish Mridha

Love is a chemical reaction,But it cannot be fully understood or defined by science.And though a body cannot exist without a soul,It too cannot be fully understood or defined by science.Love is the most powerful form of energy,But science cannot decipher its elements.Yet the best cure for a sick soul is love,But even the most advanced physicianCannot prescribe it as medicine.INCOMPLETE SCIENCE by Suzy Kassem

~ Suzy Kassem

Etre dans le vent, c'est avoir le destin des feuilles mortes.

~ Jean Guitton

Some of us are busy doing things, some of us are busy complaining.

~ Debasish Mridha

The purer your heart, the lighter your spirit will be. The lighter your spirit, the closer to light it will float. The closer to light it is permitted to go, the higher it will float. The higher it floats, the closer to God you will be. Heaven has seven layers. The vibrations of your good deeds, which will be reflected by the weight of your conscience and the purity of your heart, will determine the layer in which your soul will reside. Your goal is to make your heart as light as a feather. The heavier the heart, the more chained to this hell it will remain.

~ Suzy Kassem

Expressing doubt is how we begin a journey to discover essential truths.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Maybe we should always start everything from the inside and work to the outside, and not from the outside to the inside. What d'you think?

~ Aidan Chambers

If you want to bring the world closer to peace, be a peacemaker by creating peace whenever you can. If you find yourself engaged in an argument that only stirs anger in the heart, quickly make peace and carry on.

~ Suzy Kassem

Good authors worry about genres great authors don't.

~ Frank X. Gaspar

I was at ease in everything, to be sure, but at the same time satisfied with nothing. Each joy made me desire another. I went from festivity to festivity. On occasion I danced for nights on end, ever madder about people and life. At times, late on those nights when the dancing, the slight intoxication, my wild enthusiasm, everyone’s violent unrestraint would fill me with a tired and overwhelmed rapture, it would seem to me—at the breaking point of fatigue and for a second’s flash—that at last I understood the secret; I would rush forth anew. I ran on like that, always heaped with favors, never satiated, without knowing where to stop, until the day -- until the evening rather when the music stopped and the lights went out.

~ The Fall

whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived

~ Baruch Spinoza

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.

~ Criss Jami

Later on in life, you expect a bit of rest, don't you? You think you deserve it. I did, anyway. But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life's business.

~ Julian Barnes

The poet…is the man of metaphor: while the philosopher is interested only in the truth of meaning, beyond even signs and names, and the sophist manipulates empty signs…the poet plays on the multiplicity of signifieds.

~ Jacques Derrida

The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason.

~ Bertrand Russell

In an average day, you may well be confronted with some species of bullying or bigotry, or some ill-phrased appeal to the general will, or some petty abuse of authority. If you have a political loyalty, you may be offered a shady reason for agreeing to a lie or a half-truth that serves some short-term purpose. Everybody devises tactics for getting through such moments; try behaving as if they need not be tolerated and are not inevitable.

~ Christopher Hitchens

A lie never grows old.

~ Sophocles

Love as a concrete foundation for an authentically functional civilization requires the around-the-clock labors of forgiveness. Without it, Love fails, Friendship fails, Intelligence fails, Humanity: fails.

~ Aberjhani

Sometimes the sound of silence is the most deafening sound of all.

~ K.l. Toth

Freedom is an absolute state, there is no such thing as being half-free.

~ Daniel Delgado F

Despite its successes, in the end, philosophical thinking always falls short of its real goal. It involves both the wonder of aspiring toward the Truth and the distress of falling short of that Truth. In this way, philosophy can be characterized as wondrous distress.

~ John Marmysz

Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear -- and doubt.

~ H.a. Dorfman