Quotes About Philosophy

Religion seemed the last vestige of man's intellectual infancy.

Aristotle said all human actions have one or more of seven causes.  Chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.

Voltaire said that no problem could withstand the assault of sustained thinking. And he was right.

Everyone, she says, is his own age of meaning.

We can't find any definitive beginning or end to … anything really.

If your idea of good opposes something else, you can be sure that [it] is not absolute or certain.

T]he term 'I' … must … be used … in order for us to talk with one another. But it's not a very accurate term.

we face the woeful prospect that we're intelligent creatures living in a meaningless world.

After … all the philosophy and science that we've laboured on for centuries, it's becoming very hard to find a story we can buy.

Buddhist writings (including this book) can be likened to a raft. A raft is a very handy thing to carry you across the water, from one shore to another. But once you've reached the other shore, you no longer need the raft. Indeed, if you wish to continue your journey beyond the shore, you must leave the raft behind. Our problem is that we tend to fall in love with the raft.

As useful as science is, it will never provide a way for us to wake up to Ultimate Reality. Science remains forever in the conceptual. It wouldn't be science otherwise. This isn't a criticism. It's a necessary and unavoidable limitation.

H]ow can there be experience without a self to have that experience? We don't need … an explanation, … that's all the self is: an explanation of experience.

Just as we conceive of a self and counter this notion with a non-self, … we are also taken in by another set of opposing concepts – existence and non-existence.

even refer to?

If we believe in … an everlasting self, it's tantamount to claiming that we have existed before all else came into being. We may as well fancy ourselves as being the cause of all creation.

I'm not anything in particular. Nor are you. Nor is anyone.

Anything that can be grasped must … depend on other things for their validity. Hence, they are doubtful and perplexing. Doubt is just the flipside of belief.

The issues of what a self is, how long it will last, what will happen when our bodies decay and consciousness flickers off, are all based not on what we actually see but on what we imagine.

Relative truths are the day-to-day things and thoughts we can easily discuss, teach, sell, and conceptualise. … Each one depends on a vast multitude of other … relative truths for its existence – an existence which is, of course, conceptual.

To assume the existence of a self, an 'I', is to assume the existence of something that has not changed … . … [I]f the thing in question – the 'I' – has changed, in what manner can it still be itself?

I]t's through our obsession with meaning that we create meaninglessness.

Socrates pointed out that we carry on as though death were the greatest of all calamities—yet, for all we know, it might be the greatest of all blessings. What are we going to call good? What are we going to call bad? Good or bad is never our choice, or even the issue.

Whenever we conceptualise, we create contradictions that we can't escape.

Most of us see ourselves as corks floating in a stream … [T]his is yet another frozen view. According to this … , everything … changes except the cork. While we generally admit to changes in our body, our mind, our thoughts, our feelings, our understandings, and our beliefs, we still believe 'I' myself doesn't change. I'm still me … an unchanging cork in an ever-changing stream. This is precisely what we believe the self to be – something that doesn't change.