Quotes About Philosophy

All moral relationships are indissoluble according to their concept, as one can easily convince one's self by postulating their truth. A true state, a true marriage, a true friendship, and indissoluble. But no state, no marriage, no friendship corresponds completely to its concept... (Karl Marx)

Under capitalism, money occupies the ontological throne from which God has been evicted.

And where was the support for that kind of preparation? There are all kinds of medicines and medical devices and clinics and even hospice care to prolong life and make it as easeful as possible—but who helps you to really prepare for it, philosophically? Who teaches you how to embrace it? Is there anyone out there who really does that?

Even though there is something out there that is not the world-for-us, and even though we can name it the world-in-itself, this latter constitutes a horizon for thought, always receding just beyond the bounds of intelligibility.

Two kinds of pessimism: "The end is near" and "Will this never end?

Pessimism is the night-side of thought, a melodrama of the futility of the brain, a lyricism written in the graveyard of philosophy.

If the supernatural in a conventional sense is no longer possible, what remains after the "death of God" is an occulted, hidden world. Philosophically speaking, the enigma we face is how to confront this world, without immediately presuming that it is identical to the world-for-us (the world of science and religion), and without simply disparaging it as an irretrievable and inaccessible world-in-itself.

A crying baby is the purest expression of the inanity of being human.

What Kant refers to as depression is simply this stark realization: that thought is only incidentally human. It would take a later generation of philosophers to derive the conclusion of this: that thought thinks us, not the reverse. Legend

But already there is some ambiguity, for does black designate a "color" that does not reflect light (and if so, why label it a color?), or does black designate the "color" that results in the total absence of light? Without light, no color, and without color, there is only black – and yet black is not a color.

For every un-universe, then, an un-philosophy that must also negate itself.

There is no surer sign of pessimism than an overly-optimistic person.

Traditionally, the Socratic tradition in philosophy has a therapeutic function, which is to dispel the horrors of the unknown through reasoned argument. What cannot be tolerated in this tradition is the possibility of a world that cannot be known, or a world that is indifferent to our elaborate knowledge-producing schemes.

Whenever it occurs, however it occurs, pessimism has but one effect: it introduces humility into thought. It undermines the innumerable, self-aggrandizing postures that constitute the human being. Pessimism is the humility of the species that has named itself, thought furtively stumbling upon its own limitations on black wings of futility.

For optimists, the most perplexing question is how one becomes a pessimist – if one is not born one. For the pessimist, the question is how each person, by virtue of being born, is not already a pessimist.

How are things going?" "Oh, I can't complain…" The greatest complaint of all.

The question that runs through these disputatio is the following: What if "horror" has less to do with a fear of death, and more to do with the dread of life?

Are you a pessimist?" "On my better days…

The logic of pessimism moves through three refusals: a no-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-for-us, or Schopenhauer's tears); a yes-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-in-itself, or Nietzsche's laughter); and a no-saying to the for-us and the in-itself (a double refusal, or Cioran's sleep). Crying, laughing, sleeping — what other responses are adequate to a life that is so indifferent?

Is there yet another meaning of "black" beyond this? There is, but it is a difficult thought to think, and nearly impossible to know, though it does exist (actually it doesn't exist, though the thought of its not-existing does).

A bit of philosophizing leads to a wonderment of life. A lot of philosophizing leads to a contempt of it.

Human culture: a kind of incessant ringing in the ears.

There is no better occasion for pessimism than optimism.

Philosophy as reducible to an alibi for one's existence - for all existents. Hubris. Fear.