Quotes About Philosophy

Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.

Being unable to overcome death, misery, and uncertainty, men have agreed, in order to be happy, not to think about them.

138] Diversion. It is easier to bear death when one is not thinking about it than the idea of death when there is no danger. (166)

Que chacun examine ses pensées ; il les trouvera toujours occupées au passé et à l'avenir. Nous ne pensons presque point au temps présent ; et si nous y pensons, ce n'est que pour en prendre la lumière pour disposer de l'avenir. Le présent n'est jamais notre fin ; le passé et le présent sont nos moyens ; le seul avenir est notre fin. Ainsi nous ne vivons jamais ; mais nous espérons vivre ( pensées )

La vanité est si ancrée dans le cÅ"ur de l'homme qu'un soldat, un goujat, un cuisinier, un crocheteur se vante et veut avoir ses admirateurs ; et les philosophes mêmes en veulent. Et ceux qui écrivent contre veulent avoir la gloire d'avoir bien écrit ; et ceux qui lisent veulent avoir la gloire de l'avoir lu ; et moi qui écris ceci, ai peut-être cette envie ».

This religion taught its children what men had managed to know only at their most enlightened.

Let us then take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the Nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the Infinite. Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.

Two excesses: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.

Nous sommes de bien petites mécaniques égarées par les infinis.

We are so unhappy that we can only enjoy something which we should be annoyed to see go wrong, and that can and does constantly happen to thousands of things. Anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point. It is perpetual motion.

Man without faith can know neither true good nor justice.

is in vain, O men, that you seek within yourselves the remedy for your ills. All your light can only reach the knowledge that not in yourselves will you find truth or good.

133] Diversion. Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.

And thus, by combining the uncertainty of chance with the force of mathematical proof and by the reconciliation of two apparent opposites, she derives her name from both of them and rightfully assumes the wonderful name of Mathematics of Chance!

To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher

Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

There is nothing so conformable to reason as to disavow reason

Man's greatness come from knowing he wretched: a tree does not know it is wretched. (21)

But for this mystery [of original sin], the most incomprehensible of all, we remain incomprehensible to ourselves.

But what is nature? For is custom not natural? I am much afraid that nature is itself only a first custom, as custom is a second nature.

les manichéens étoient les luthériens de leur temps, comme les luthériens sont les manichéens du nôtre.

?tiinÈ›a lucrurilor exterioare nu m? poate consola de necunoaÈ™terea moralei în vremuri de am?r?ciune; dar È™tiinÈ›a moravurilor m? va consola întotdeauna de ignorarea È™tiinÈ›elor exterioare.