Quotes About Philosophy

The man of visionary mind may sit down before one solitary cabbage, and find food for his thought, if not for his palate, in the reflection, "Truly thou mightest have been my brother.

Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.

Descartes spent far too much time in bed subject to the persistent hallucination that he was thinking. You are not free from a similar disorder.

Is it life?" he answered, "I would rather be without it," he said, "for there is queer small utility in it. You cannot eat it or drink it or smoke it in your pipe, it does not keep the rain out and it is a poor armful in the dark if you strip it and take it to bed with you after a night of porter when you are shivering with the red passion. It is a great mistake and a thing better done without, like bed-jars and foreign bacon.

Answers do not matter so much as questions, said the Good Fairy. A good question is very hard to answer. The better the question the harder the answer. There is no answer at all to a very good question.

Always ask any questions that are to be asked and never answer any. Turn everything you hear to your own advantage. Always carry a repair outfit. Take left turns as much as possible. Never apply your front brake first. 'If you follow them', said the Sergeant, 'you will save your soul and never get a fall on a slippery road.

Is it about a bicycle?

I preach that there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's, but behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth.

Democracy may have arisen in the West as the way of striving for the universal aspiration to dignity and freedom, but it isn't alien to the underlying concepts that infuse religion and moral philosophy everywhere.

Yo os digo: es preciso tener todavía caos dentro de sí para poder dar a luz una estrella danzarina. Extracto de Así habló Zaratustra, de Friedrich Nietzsche, filósofo alemán (1844-1900)

Hay dos formas de ver la vida: una es creer que no existen los milagros; la otra es creer que todo es un milagro. Albert Einstein, científico alemán (1879-1955)

A true philosopher is like an elephant; he never puts the second foot down until the first one is solidly in place.

Ne prenez pas la vie au sérieux; de toute façon, vous n'en sortirez pas vivant Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (11 février 1657- 9 janvier 1757) mort à 99 ans...

Death is not a curse to be outwitted no matter the cost. Death is the natural pivot on which life turns, without which life as we know it could not be. A pro-life-support position is not always a pro-life position. When we can no longer hold on with purpose, to let go is to die with dignity and grace.

How is it that the strange idea of making the law produce what it does not contain—prosperity, in a positive sense, wealth, science, religion—should ever have gained ground in the political world?

To take by violence is not to produce, but to destroy. Truly, if taking by violence was producing, this country of ours would be a little richer than she is.

Mr. de Lamartine once wrote to me thusly: "Your doctrine is only the half of my program. You have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity." I answered him: "The second half of your program will destroy the first.

We cannot wonder enough at the facility with which men resign themselves to continue ignorant of what it is most important that they should know; and we may be certain that such ignorance is incorrigible in those who venture to proclaim this axiom: There are no absolute principles.

La gran desventura de Francia es la preferencia de la igualdad por encima de la libertad.   Alexis de Tocqueville.

In fact, it is not justice which has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The one results from the absence of the other. But

Imagine a state of affairs in which, for each man killed in action, two spring from the ground full of strength and energy. If there is a planet where such things happen, war, it must be admitted, is conducted there under conditions so different from those we see down here that it no longer deserves even to be called by the same name.

La gran desventura de Francia es la preferencia de la igualdad por encima de la libertad. Alexis de Tocqueville. LA LEY LA Ley ¡pervertida!

Recette pour aller mieux. Répéter souvent ces trois phrases : le bonheur n'existe pas. L'amour est impossible. Rien n'est grave.

Être seul est devenu une maladie honteuse. Pourquoi tout le monde fuit-il la solitude? Parce qu'elle oblige à penser. De nos jours, Descartes n'écrirait plus: "Je pense donc je suis." Il dirait: "Je suis seul donc je pense." Personne ne veut la solitude, car elle laisse trop de temps pour réfléchir. Or plus on pense, plus on est intelligent, donc plus on est triste.