Philosophy Quotes

When there is no other aim but to outstrip constantly the point arrived at, how painful to be thrown back!...Since imagination is hungry for novelty, and ungoverned, it gropes at random

~ Émile Durkheim

A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely

~ Christopher J. Nolan

It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false.

~ Leo Tolstoy

No woman truly wants independence. She wants the freedom to choose her own master. This is also what men want. The origin of all human conflict is, possibly, disagreement about who ought and ought not to be one's master. The origin of all human happiness is, maybe, mutual agreement on the subject.

~ Gina Wohlsdorf

Everyone is trying to impress everyone else, trying to make themselves out to be smarter or more confident than they actually are.

~ Marissa Meyer

Everyone is trying to impress everyone else. to make themselves out to be smarter or more confident than they actually are.

~ Marissa Meyer

Imagine a problem in psychology: to find a way of getting people in our day and age - Christians, humanitarians, nice, kind people - to commit the most heinous crimes without feeling any guilt. There is only one solution - doing just what we do now: you make them governors, superintendents, officers or policemen, a process which, first of all, presupposes acceptance of something that goes by the name of government service and allows people to be treated like inanimate objects, precluding any humane or brotherly relationships, and, secondly, ensures that people working for this government service must be so interdependent that responsibility for any consequences of the way they treat people never devolves on any one of them individually.

~ Leo Tolstoy

We are shocked by thieves taking pride in their clever touch, prostitutes in their depravity and murderers in their callousness. But it is shocking only because the atmosphere of the circles they move in is restricted, and - what matters most - we are on the outside. But isn't the same thing happening when rich men take pride in their wealth (which is theft), military commanders in their victories (which are murder) and rulers in their power (which is violence)? We do not see them as people who corrupt the concept of life, or good and evil, in order to justify their own situation, but only because the circles of people who share these corrupt concepts are wider, and we belong to them.

~ Leo Tolstoy

If a society does not value love and kindness, that society has no value.

~ Debasish Mridha

To create an enlightened society, be a beacon of light

~ Debasish Mridha

We do not know how to just do nothing; this is a bigger problem than we care to think about. In the west we are taught to seek our answers in external things and, as a result, we never need to take the time to look within. We have a poor connection with ourselves because our whole lives we have been looking outward; we are a society bent on distraction, and the modern world is only amplifying this.

~ Evan Sutter

Collectivism is the best solution for a society in harmony. It will be a success when you find a living being, plant or microorganism that it can be applied to.

~ Hasse Jerner

Mental illness is a bigger problem than obesity and cardiovascular diseases in the modern western world but still we pay no homage to the philosophy of watching what we watch. We only worry about what we put in the body in the form of food and care very little, if at all, with what we consume in our minds.

~ Evan Sutter

Thus it is, we sow motions of hatred out of our own impoverished understanding of love. Yet we do so in the name of love. The perplexing precipice of the illusory infirmity.

~ Steven Storm

My touchstone for following a line of wisdom is; ‘living the philosophy should bring freedom to the individual, and love, wisdom and compassion to society, to our relationships’.

~ Phil 'Philosofree' Cheney

If I want to understand an individual human being, I must lay aside all scientific knowledge of the average man and discard all theories in order to adopt a completely new and unprejudiced attitude. I can only approach the task of understanding with a free and open mind, whereas knowledge of man, or insight into human character, presupposes all sorts of knowledge about mankind in general.

~ C.g. Jung

If only a world-wide consciousness could arise that all division and fission are due to the splitting of opposites in the psyche, then we should know where to begin.

~ C.g. Jung

The State in particular is turned into a quasi-animate personality from whom everything is expected. In reality it is only a camouflage for those individuals who know how to manipulate it.

~ C.g. Jung

I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create reasonably decent societies. I think that young people who want to understand the world can profit from the works of Plato and Socrates, the behaviour of the three Thomases, Aquinas, More and Jefferson — the austere analyses of Immanuel Kant and the political leadership of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. [The World Is My Home (1991)]

~ James A. Michener

Society was created not by men but by women, men played only a side role.

~ Debasish Mridha

Conformity rules society not wisdom or simplicity.

~ Debasish Mridha

If you really want to change society, encourage self appreciation.

~ Réné Gaudette

Causes: As important a fact as any individual cause on earth is the vital incapacity of the human individual to distinguish between genuine cause and one which is foisted upon him by pressure, environment, propaganda, conditioning.If people had the sense they pretend to have, they would seek this fundamental distinction perceptible.Hardly anyone makes this effort. This is partly because it is an invisible but powerful part of their culture to teach that conditioned emotionality and ‘causes’ whose necessity, urgency or rightness is only conditioned into them, are necessarily, right.

~ Idries Shah

A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

The foundation of morality on the human sentiments of what is acceptable behavior versus repulsive behavior has always made morals susceptible to change. Much of what was repulsive 100 years ago is normal today, and - although it may be a slippery slope - what is repulsive today is possible to be normal 100 years into tomorrow; the human standard has always been but to push the envelope. In this way, all generations are linked, and one can only hope that every extremist, self-proclaimed progressive is considering this ultimate 'Utopia' to which his kindness will lead at the end of the chain.

~ Criss Jami

I kept returning to this new and bizarre question: is there anything that actually is as it seems? Is anything perceptually straightforward? Maybe that’s inherently impossible, because impressions are, by their very nature, cumulative – the sum of all your interactions with and perceptions of things.

~ Zack Love

☺☺ When a man gets to 99, he starts to think, he may only have another 10 years of sexy lovemaking left... Still Smiling At 99. ☺☺

~ Michael Levy

☺☺ When a man gets you 99, he starts to think, he may only have another 10 years of sexy lovemaking left... Still Smiling At 99. ☺☺

~ Michael Levy

If there be such a principle as justice, or natural law, it is the principle, or law, that tells us what rights were given to every human being at his birth; what rights are, therefore, inherent in him as a human being, necessarily remain with him during life; and, however capable of being trampled upon, are incapable of being blotted out, extinguished, annihilated, or separated or eliminated from his nature as a human being, or deprived of their inherent authority or obligation.

~ Lysander Spooner

Fear is a disease of mind we inherit from society.

~ Debasish Mridha

The sacred is a fine hiding place for the profane.

~ David Mitchell

Always write to change society for the better.You will go, but it will live as a treasure forever.

~ Debasish Mridha

Write about the beauties of life to create a beautiful society.

~ Debasish Mridha

Always write to change society for the better. You will go, but it will live forever as a treasure.

~ Debasish Mridha

True education should teach us how to think, how to see the beauty in the midst of ugliness, how to love without judging, how to find opportunity to help, and how to develop a peaceful and nonviolent society.

~ Debasish Mridha

When you serve the humanity and contribute to the society without expectation, you are happy.

~ Debasish Mridha

Now domestication and sophistication of men by women are the norm and acceptable by society, but they are terrible for manhood.

~ Debasish Mridha

Empathy is the sunlight to the vampire of culture.

~ Stefan Molyneux

We are not like you. We do not glory in having power over our own kind. Haghuf turned to walk away. Then as an afterthought added over his shoulder, Or imagining that we do.

~ Jaq D. Hawkins

Treatment for dependency at substance abuse treatment centers must change if alcoholism and addiction are to be overcome in our society.

~ Chris Prentiss