Quotes About Philosophy

Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms - in themselves such judgments are stupidities.

Faith: not *wanting* to know what is true.

Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine.

Man is more ape than many of the apes.

Perhaps I know why it is man alone who laughs He alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.

Thinking evil is making evil.

It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?

That which Dante saw written on the door of the inferno must be written in a different sense also at the entrance to philosophy: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Those who look for true philosophy must be bereft of all hope, all desire, all longing. They must not wish for anything, not know anything, must feel completely bare and impoverished.

Far from it being true that man and his activity makes the world comprehensible, he is himself the most incomprehensible of all, and drives me relentlessly to the view of the accursedness of all being, a view manifested in so many painful signs in ancient and modern times. It is precisely man who drives me to the final despairing question: Why is there something? Why not nothing?

Die Natur soll der sichtbare Geist, der Geist die unsichtbare Natur sein. Hier also, in der absoluten Identität des Geistes in uns und der Natur außer uns, muß sich das Problem, wie eine Natur außer uns möglich sei, auflösen.

Aesthetic matters are fundamental for the harmonious development of both society and the individual.

They would need to be already wise, in order to love wisdom.

Die Blüten aller Dinge jeglicher Art flicht Poesie in einen leichten Kranz und so nennt und reimt auch Wilhelmine Gegenden, Zeiten, Begebenheiten, Personen, Spielwerke und Speisen, alles durcheinander in romantischer Verwirrung, so viel Worte so viel Bilder; und das ohne alle Nebenbestimmungen und künstlichen Übergänge, die am Ende doch nur dem Verstande frommen und jeden kühneren Schwung der Fantasie hemmen.

philosophy of art usually lacks one of two things: either the philosophy or the art

Really, we shouldn't neglect the study of idleness so criminally, but make it into an art and a science, even into a religion!

For every concept, as for every proof, one can ask for a concept in turn and a proof of it. For this reason, philosophy, like an epic poem, must begin in the middle, and it is impossible to present it and give an account of it piece by piece in such a way that the first [principle] is completely justified and explained. It is a whole and the path to knowing it is not a straight line but a circle.

In fact he claimed that he was removing an untenable knowledge of God in order to make room for faith.

Vielmehr stellt er auch die Bildung vor die Frage, wie der Konflikt zwischen Glaube und Wissen etwa durch gebildete Reflexion zumindest abgemildert werden kann.

Was die Natur betrifft, genügt mir der Schnittlauch auf der Suppe.